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ORIGINS OF 



THE ENGLISH PEOPLE AND OF 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 



COMPILED FROM THE BEST AND LATEST AUTHORITIES 



BY 

JEAN ROEMER, LL. D. 

PROFESSOR OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE AND VICE-PRESIDENT 
OF THE COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 



1 



NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

LONDON: PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
1888 






Copyright, 1887, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



PREFACE. 



The history of a language is, in a great measure, the 
history of the people who speak it, and of those who 
have spoken it. It is the history of the many populations, 
different in origin, manners, and in speech, who have at 
various epochs occupied the soil conjointly, sometimes in 
friendly, but more often in hostile, relations, until people 
of another race, more powerful than any, have crushed 
them all, and, taking possession of the land, have di- 
vided it among themselves, exterminating all who resist- 
ed them, and allowing the rest to live only on condition 
of their being quiet and doing all the work. In this 
movement of successive invasions, the elder races, dis- 
persed and reduced in number, have often been compelled 
to make room for others, who, conquered in their turn, 
have become serfs of the soil which they once occupied as 
masters and as rulers. It is to these conquests, kept up 
throughout the Middle Ages, that the majority of Euro- 
pean nations owe their geographical limits and even their 
present names. Their establishment was mainly the re- 
sult of greed and military power ; new societies have been 
formed out of the wrecks of the older ones violently de- 
stroyed, but in the work of reconstruction they have 
always retained something of their previous existence 



IV 



PREFACE. 



in their internal constitution, and especially in their lan- 
guage. 

Languages, like nations, have their periods of growth, 
maturity, and decay, but while nineteen-twentieths of the 
vocabulary of a people lives in the literature and speech 
of the cultured classes only, the remainder has a robust 
life in the daily usage of the sons of toil ; and this limited 
but more persistent portion of the national speech never 
fails to include the names of those objects which are the 
most familiar and the most beloved. Such are, for in- 
stance, the names of nearest relatives, father, mother, 
brother ; of the parts of the body ; of two or three of the 
commoner metals, tools, weapons, cereals, domestic ani- 
mals ; of the house, and things found in and near it ; of 
the most striking features in the landscape, the mountain 
peaks and ranges, the valleys, lakes, and rivers ; of the 
sun, the moon, the stars, the sky, the clouds, etc. ; and as 
at all times, and in every region of the world, these names 
have had the same clear and well-defined meanings, their 
visible forms stand as a sort of material lexicon, explaining 
not only the more archaic forms of living languages, but 
even of tongues that have ceased to be vernacular. 

Many nations have left no written records, and their 
history would be a blank volume, or nearly so, were it not 
that in the places where they have sojourned they have 
left traces of their migrations sufficiently clear to enable 
us to reconstruct the main outline of their history. The 
hills, the valleys, and the rivers are, in fact, the only writ, 
ing-tablets on which unlettered nations have been able to 
inscribe their annals, and these may be read in the names 
that still cling to the sites, and often contain the records 
of a class of events as to which written history is for the 



PREFACE. v 

most part silent. These appellations, which originally 
had a descriptive import, referring mostly to the physical 
features of the land, have even the advantage over the 
common names of a nation's speech of being less subject 
to the process of phonetic decay. They seem to be en- 
dowed with a sort of inherent and indestructible vital- 
ity which makes them survive the catastrophes which 
overthrow empires, and outlive devastations which are 
fatal to almost everything else. Wars can trample down 
or extirpate whatever grows upon a soil, excepting only 
its native plants and the names of those sites upon which 
man has found a home. Seldom is a people utterly ex- 
terminated, for the proud conqueror has need of some at 
least of the natives to till the soil anew ; and these en- 
slaved outcasts, though they may hand down no memory 
of the splendid deeds of the nation's heroes, yet retain 
a most tenacious recollection of the names of the hamlets 
which their ignoble progenitors inhabited, and near to 
which their fathers were interred. Geographical nomen- 
clature is, therefore, an important factor in all that con- 
cerns a nation's early history, and it often furnishes most 
effectual aid in the solution of linguistic problems. 

If, then, we would trace the English language to its 
sources, the course to be pursued is clearly marked out. 
The subject, which covers a wide range of interesting 
studies, involves, first of all, a critical inquiry into the 
origin, character, and distribution of the various races of 
men — Celts, Romans, Saxons, Danes, Normans — who at 
various epochs have found their way into the British 
islands — their idioms and forms of religion, their social 
and political differences, their relative progress in the arts 
of civilized life. From the complexity of the subject, it 



vi PREFACE. 

is obvious that the knowledge we possess of all these de- 
tails is not the fruit of any one man's learning, but the 
result of long and patient labors of many specialists in 
each of these branches. Availing ourselves of the latest 
researches of the distinguished scholars whose names we 
quote as our authorities in the list appended, and whose 
acknowledged learning and accuracy need no commenda- 
tion, we here present to the student, who has not time to 
make a close study of their numerous works, a digest of 
their substance, so arranged as to be neither reduced to 
the skeleton of a mere abridgment, nor extended to the 
huge dimensions of a learned work. Supposing the read- 
er to be familiar with at least the outlines of early English 
history, we will not follow it throughout its continuity, 
but rather dwell on those great epochs of national strug- 
gle in which we find two peoples of different origin and 
speech, meeting first in deadly strife, and then continuing 
to live on the same soil in hostile relation for many gen- 
erations, until, in course of time, common interests, by 
drawing them together, brought about a corresponding 
fusion of their idioms, the traces of which are still so 
clearly marked as not only to reveal, in almost every 
instance, the character and extent of each successive con- 
quest, but even to indicate the degree of power and 
tenacity to national speech and customs which was dis- 
played by each race in their amalgamation. 

History and language, thus studied by the light which 
they shed upon each other, will impress the reader all 
the more vividly as the scenes depicted more truly rep- 
resent the men of by-gone ages as living beings who 
think and speak and act, with motives for their actions. 
Individual celebrities are here of less account, and need 



PREFACE. vii 

be noticed only as centers around which the great facts 
of history are grouped ; whereas an inquiry into the 
sources of the language will bring us more immediately 
among the people, and lead us to observe the social exist- 
ence of the masses in their daily relations of life. Thus 
considered, and divested in our imagination of the illu- 
sions of distance in time and place, the various popula- 
tions which will be brought to view, either simultaneously 
or successively, will excite in us all the interest and sym- 
pathy with which we would look upon immediate neigh- 
bors whose collective existence is filled, like our own, 
with alternations of happiness and grief, of hope and 
of dejection. In thus reanimating past generations, our 
own thoughts, acts, and motives will be to some extent 
the measure by which we can judge theirs ; and in placing 
ourselves in their midst we shall find that their speech also, 
in which they are living yet, exhibits in all its changes 
and vicissitudes the same phenomena which we may ob- 
serve immediately around us, under our own eyes, and in 
our very homes. The vast amount of immigration into 
this country from all parts of the world, and the various 
idioms and dialects we hear all around us, and which 
in course of time must all change into English, will fur- 
nish us in this respect with an abundance of instances and 
illustrations. 

By thus viewing the subject in its historical aspect 
mainly, and as it were identifying ourselves with the peo- 
ple whose speech we are investigating, we shall the better 
understand their inner life, their wants, and their ideas, 
their gradual progress in civilization, and at the same time 
the outward garb in which, at different epochs of their 
national existence, they have contrived to clothe their 



viii PREFACE. 

thoughts and feelings. Thus, even in its rudest forms, 
the language, as it once was used, will become the object 
of our deepest interest when, tracing it through all its 
vicissitudes, we finally see it emerge from comparative 
obscurity to take its place among the world's leading 
idioms, producing masterpieces in every department of 
literature, and rapidly becoming the means of general 
intercourse among all civilized nations. 

From this brief outline of the plan and scope of this 
work, it will be readily perceived that it is not presented 
as a treatise on either Early English History, or English 
Language and Literature, but rather as an adjunct to the 
former, an introduction to the latter, and an assistance, we 
hope, in the rational study of both. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN. 

Gaels, Gauls, and pre-historic occupants of Britain — Origin of the names 
" Britain " and " Britannia " — Natural division of the island into north and 
south — The northern part called Alben — The southwestern part called 
Cymry — The eastern and southern parts called Lloegria — The primitive 
population driven to the west into Wales, and to the north into Caledonia 
— Part of the fugitives cross the sea into the isle of Erin and the smaller 
western islands — Albion, Ierne, and the smaller islands known to the an- 
cients as the " Bretannic Isles" — Cambrians, Loegrians, and. Britons — 
Early invasions of Britain — The Belgse — The Coritani — Invasion of Diviti- 
acus, King of Soissons — The four Gaulish kingdoms of Kent — The Trino- 
bantes — The Iceni — The Catuvellaunian confederacy — Civilization of the 
Gaulish settlers — Their dwellings — A chief's house — Physical appearance — 
Dress — Ornaments — Equipments in war and peace — Scythed chariots — 
Agriculture — Horses — Cattle — Domestic life. 

Gaelic settlements in western and northern Britain — Climate and phys- 
ical appearance of the country — The tribes of the southwest — The Dam- 
nonians and Durotriges — Their superior culture — Their foreign trade — 
Description of their ships — The other tribes of the west are of low civili- 
zation and of mixed blood — The Silurians of South Wales — The Demetae — 
The Dobuni — The Cornavii — The Ordovices of North Wales — They are of 
Gaelic descent — The central tribes — The Coritavi, a name applied to sever- 
al distinct races, some semi-barbarous, others utterly so — The ruder tribes 
are migratory, disfigure themselves with woad, and live by war and plun- 
der — The Confederate tribes of the north, called Brigantes by the Ro- 
mans—Their prowess in war— Tacitus's opinion of the British nations as 
enemies. 

Non-Celtic tribes — Tacitus ascribes to them a Spanish origin — Irish 
legends on the subject — The Fir-Bolgs — Fair and dark races — Survivals of 
the pre-Celtic stocks — The nations of pre-historic Britain — How classi- 
fied — The Stone or Pre-metallic Age — The Bronze Age — The Iron Age — 



x CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Evidence of sequence in the use of metal — Remains of the Paleolithic Age 
— Relics of the Neolithic Age — Tombs of the kings — Cromlechs, dolmens, 
standing-stones — Superstitious notions concerning them — Classification of 
barrows — Chambered and unchambered varieties — Picts' houses in Scot- 
land, and Clochans in Ireland — Contents of the tombs — Physical charac- 
teristics of the people who built them — Commencement of the Bronze 
Age — Evidences of an invasion of men of Finnish type — Their peaceful re- 
lations with the earlier occupants of the country — Contents of their bar- 
rows — Implements — Ornaments — Agriculture and general civilization — 
Their incorporation with the Celtic people, and probable influence on the 
Celtic languages of Britain. 

The Celtic languages — Their living forms in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, 
Man, and Brittany — Dead forms : Pictish, Cornish, Welsh of Stratclyde, 
Gaulish, Thracian, Galatian, and Celtiberian — Literature of the surviving 
Celtic dialects — Scotch, Irish, Welsh, and Manx versions of St. Luke, chap. 
vii, v. 11-17 — Difference between the British dialects and the Brezonec 
of Brittany — The difference but slight in Caesar's time, and even as late as 
the twelfth century — Similarity of the Welsh and Gaulish languages — Like- 
ness between the older forms of Welsh and Irish — Welsh and Irish prob- 
ably at first one nation — Their separation and contact with other peoples 
leads to a difference of form in their languages. 

Religion of the British tribes — Its influence on the literature of ro- 
mance — Theories about Druidism — The Welsh Triads — Their date and 
authority — Legend of Hugh the Mighty — Mythological poems of the Welsh 
bards — Religion of the Gauls — Its nature — The greater gods — Local deities 
and inferior gods — Origin of Druidism — Insular and Continental Druids — 
Doctrines of the British Druids — Their ceremonies and human sacrifices — 
Relics of the old creed still found among the country people, in heroic 
poems, and in nursery tales — Metempsychosis— Sacred animals — Prohibi- 
tion of certain kinds of food — Connected with claims of descent from 
animals — Totemism — Extent of this superstition in ancient and modern 
times. 

A general idea of the country and its people at the time of the first Ro- 
man invasion essential to a correct understanding of the vicissitudes which 
subsequently befell the British nations I 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 

Character of the Roman conquest — The century of peace after Caesar's 
invasion — Increase of commerce with Gaul — Fresh settlements of Gauls 
in Britain — The Atrebates — The Belgae — The Parisii — Temporary pros- 
perity of the native states — Silver coinage ; precious ores ; exports — Ro- 
man greed — End of the peace — The capture of Camulodunum — The Tri- 
umph of Claudius — Massacre of the captives — Enrolment of British 



CONTENTS. xi 

PAGE 

regiments — Tyrannical administration — Revolt of the Iceni — Victory of 
Paullinus — The province constituted — Agricola's beneficial government — 
Extent of the Roman conquest after his retirement — The Caledonian 
tribes — The Picts and Scots — Their hostile enterprises — Hadrian sum- 
moned to Britain — His headquarters at Eburacum, the site of modern 
York — Roman camps the origin of many English towns — Their sites and 
system of fortification — Hadrian's wall — Description of its remains — The 
expedition of Severus — Death of the emperor at York — The revolt of Ca- 
rausius — Growing influence and final defeat of the Franks in Britain — 
Diocletian's scheme of government — Reigns of Constantius and Constan- 
tine the Great — Division of Roman Britain into five provinces — Effect of 
the new constitution — Increase of taxation and extreme wretchedness of 
the natives — Establishment of Christianity in Britain — Gradual decay of 
Paganism — Pantheistic religions — State of the frontiers — Renewed attacks 
of the Picts and Scots — The Franks and Saxons — Victories of Theodosius 
— The revolt of Maximus — His successful campaign against the Picts and 
Scots — He raises a large army of Britons and Gauls, crosses over to the 
Continent, and establishes himself at Treves as Emperor of the West — 
His drain upon the native population a cause of weakness to the country 
— Believed to have been the proximate cause of the English conquest — 
Combined attacks of Scots, Picts, and Saxons — Repulsed by Stilicho — 
Usurpation of Constantine — The treason of Gerontius — The cities of Brit- 
ain repel a German invasion — They refuse to return to their former subjec- 
tion — Honorius releases them from further allegiance — The independence 
of Britain. 

Effects of four hundred years of Roman occupation upon the native 
Celtic language — Agricola endeavors to introduce Roman civilization 
among the native chiefs — Roman schools in Britain inferior to those in 
Gaul — British students frequenting the Gaulish law schools — No Latin 
author of distinction among the Britons — Latin indispensable to the native 
business people — In official transactions, imperative — Ancient British coins 
are stamped with Roman capitals — British monumental inscriptions in 
Latin — Latin words traceable in the Cambrian dialect — Few words in 
modern English of Latin origin referable to the early British period 34 



CHAPTER III. 

THE ENGLISH CONQUEST. 

Troubles of the independent Britons — They organize under their an- 
cient chiefs of tribes — The Chief of chiefs — The office a source of internal 
dissension — Fresh invasions of Picts and Scots — The Saxon pirates — The 
Halleluia victory — Engagement of foreign soldiers as auxiliaries in the 
British service — Beginnings of the English conquest — British and Saxon 
accounts compared — Early Welsh poems — Nennius ; Gildas ; Bede — The 
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle — Character of the authorities — Jutes — Doubtful 



xii CONTENTS. 

origin of the name — The legend of Hengist and Horsa — The Saxon 
invasions — Britain full of German settlements — Its wealth and commerce 
attract the continental pirates — The whole of British coasts open to their 
enterprises — Count of the Saxon frontier — His powers and jurisdiction 
— The North German coast from the Scheldt to the Elbe — Holland as 
it was and as it is — The Batavi in Caesar's time — Their bravery and faith 
as Roman allies — The Franks — Not known to either Caesar or Tacitus — 
First heard of in A. D. 241 — Originally found along the upper Rhine — 
They gradually spread westward to the sea — Their naval expeditions 
against Britain and down the coast of Gaul — Their physical appearance, 
their institutions, and equipments in war — Their weapons found in Kent 
and elsewhere in England — The Friesians — They occupy originally the 
entire coast from the Scheldt to Denmark — Friesians and Hollanders 
essentially the same people — In the third century they form a confederacy 
with the Chauci and yield the southern part of Holland to the Franks — 
The Saxons — First mentioned by Ptolemy — The name derived from their 
national weapon — Their warlike character — They often act in concert with 
the Friesians and the Franks — Their early raids into Gaul and Britain — 
The Saxons at home and the Saxons in England — The aggressive power 
of the former destroyed by Charlemagne — The Angles — Only incidentally 
mentioned by Tacitus — Ptolemy places them on the middle Elbe among 
the Hermunduri — Believed by some to have been a branch of the Her- 
munduri — They spread along the lower Elbe into Holstein — Ida's expedi- 
tion — The Angles in the interior join the Varini, and, conjointly with 
them, take the name of Thuringi — The name of Angles not derived from 
the Angulus in Sleswick — Theories as to other invading tribes — Their 
general character described by Orosius, Zosimus, Ammianus Marcellinus, 
Sidonius Apollinaris, and others — Their extraordinary daring and savage 
cruelty — Their moral qualities and national sense of honor — Their sur- 
roundings in their continental homes contrasted with those of people liv- 
ing in milder climes — The influence of climate on civilization and on lan- 
guage — The Gothic stock of languages — Specimen of Moeso-Gothic — The 
Teutonic branch and its subdivisions — The Scandinavian branch and its 
subdivisions — German, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish compared — Britain 
invaded by the Low-Dutch speaking people — Time of the first invasion 
uncertain — The invasion slow and gradual — Participation of foreign resi- 
dents — Condition of the Britons under Saxon rule — The sack of Anderida 
— Fate of the Roman towns — Social and political relations of the Saxon 
tribes in England — Their advance in agriculture — Their institutions and 
form of government — The freemen and the serfs — Various degrees of serf- 
dom — Saxon slaves in the slave-mart at Rome — They attract the attention 
of Pope Gregory the Great — He conceives the idea of educating some as 
missionaries to Britain — They fail to answer his expectation — He intrusts 
the mission to Augustin — He provides him with letters to the Frankish 
kings, Theodoric and Theodebert, who assist him on his journey to Britain — 
Curious reference in these letters to the Saxons in Britain as subjects of the 



CONTENTS. xiii 

PAGE 

Franks — Augustin takes with him, as interpreters to communicate with the 
people of Kent, some Salian Franks who spoke the ancient idiom of Hol- 
land — He lands in Britain on the isle of Thanet — Ethelbert, King of Kent, 
meets him there in the open air for fear of magic — The king is eventu- 
ally converted to Christianity — Slow progress of the new religion among 
the Saxons — The converts often relapse into idolatry — Heathen survivals 
— Character of Saxon Paganism — Heathen songs crowded out by stirring 
Christian hymns — Csedmon — Character of early Anglo-Saxon poetry — 
Christianity the cradle of English national literature — Celtic influence on 
the language — It is more literary than lexical — Common nouns of Celtic 
origin — Celtic local names — Roman local names — The Celtic population of 
England — Runes and Ogham inscriptions — Their origin and gradual dis- 
appearance — The Roman alphabet — The Irish alphabet — Early Anglo- 
Saxon writing formed after the Irish model — Earliest specimens of Anglo- 
Saxon date back no farther than the end of the seventh century — They 
belong to the Anglian district — All tribal denominations abolished by 
Egbert, and the names of England and English for the country and its 
inhabitants proclaimed by royal decree, A. D. 827 — Probable reason for the 
measure 57 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE DANES IN ENGLAND. 

The Danes — Known by various names — Their origin and continental 
homes — Their national character — Their skalds and bards — Their con- 
firmed idolatry and hatred of the converted Saxons accounted for — Their 
numerous kings and petty kingdoms reduced to three separate monarchies 
— The Vikingr — Their piratical associations — Early Danish expeditions 
against England — Danish invasion of Cornwall supported by the Britons — 
Repulse of the Danes — They effect a settlement in the northeast of Eng- 
land — Another expedition lands in East Anglia — They march on York, and 
occupy the whole country around it — Northumberland ceases to be an Eng- 
lish kingdom, and becomes a rallying point of the Danes — After three 
years' preparation they move southward with overwhelming forces — Fearful 
destruction of churches, monasteries, books, manuscripts, and everything 
connected with Christian worship — Their national fanaticism is directed 
especially against the clergy — Many native English relapse into idolatry — 
East Anglia becomes a Danish kingdom — The English population reduced 
to a state of semi-servitude —Nearly all England overrun by the Danes — 
Wessex alone remains an English kingdom — The Danes pass the Thames 
— ^thelred, King of Wessex, dies of wounds received in battle — His 
brother Alfred succeeds him — The latter repels the Danes, and maintains 
the boundary line of the Thames — His excessive rigor alienates his sub- 
jects — He deserts the people who had deserted him — The Danes enter 
Wessex — Many inhabitants take refuge in Gaul or in Ireland — Those who 



xiv CONTENTS. 



remain pay tribute, and labor for the Danes — Alfred, known to a few 
friends only, keeps up a guerilla warfare against the Danes — The unknown 
chief is joined by many partisans — He makes himself known, and strongly 
reinforced, he drives out the Danes — Their King Guthrum and his captains 
receive baptism, as by treaty, and withdraw to East Anglia — All parts of 
England, not occupied by the Danes, form henceforth one single state — 
Bad faith of the Danes — They join new expeditions against the southern 
English — Their constant wars and incessant depredations fatal to civ- 
ilization. 

Deterioration of the vernacular English — Lack of culture among the 
English people in Alfred's time — His endeavor to rescue his dominions 
from illiteracy and ignorance — He invites the most learned men from 
abroad to come as teachers to England — The studies that were cultivated 
in those ages — Alcuin and his methods — Dialectic differences in early Eng- 
lish — Like differences still existing in cognate idioms — Friesian and Dutch 
compared with modern English — The written Anglo-Saxon a conglomerate 
of various dialects — Its grammar, vocabulary, and literature — The scholars 
of the eighth and ninth century write mainly for the learned — Their writing 
only in Latin is detrimental to the progress of the vernacular language — 
Anglo-Saxon versions of the Gospel — Eighth and tenth century specimens 
of Anglo-Saxon scriptural language — A Northumberland gloss of the same 
passage — Danish influence on early English — Traceable especially in the 
dialects of northern England — Common names of Scandinavian origin — 
Proper names, descriptive of Scandinavian localities — Proper names, de- 
scriptive of Anglo-Saxon localities — Identity of local and patronymic names 
in England, Holland, Friesland, Westphalia, Belgium, and Northern 
France, showing identity of origin and race — The extent of Danish occu- 
pation best ascertained from geographical nomenclature — The presence of 
the Danes prejudicial to the development of national character — Low con- 
dition of the nation at the time of the Norman conquest 143 



CHAPTER V. 

THE NORMANS IN GAUL. 

Origin of the Normans— King Harald Harfager prohibits piracy in 
his states — Hrolf, the son of a favorite chief, disregards the law and is 
banished — He is joined by other Norwegian exiles and emigrants — They 
organize at the Hebrides, and form a piratical association — They effect a 
landing in England, and winter in the island — After plundering Flanders, 
they sail up the Seine, and ravage the surrounding country — Rouen capit- 
ulates — The Normans make it their headquarters, and establish themselves 
all over Neustria — Rollo, first duke of Normandy — His character as a 
leader — The eighth century Danes and tenth century Normans compared — 
The Normans in Gaul become a French-speaking people — The Scandi- 
navian idiom kept up longest at Bayeux — The Normans before and after 



CONTENTS. xv 

PAGE 

their conversion to Christianity — Their Pagan superstitions — Elves, mount- 
ain-dwarfs, were-wolves, etc. — Growth of Norman civilization — Normandy 
the principal center of religion and of science in Europe — Its schools of 
Rouen, Caen, Fontenelle, Fecamp, Lisieux, etc. — The abbeys of Bee and 
Jumieges — Lanfranc — Anselm — The Normans in the Holy Land and 
Sicily — Their old Norse spirit of war and adventure — Roger de Toesny ; 
Robert Guiscard — The Norman character painted by a contemporary 
historian — Their lavishness and greed — Their fortitude in war and en- 
durance of hardship — Their taste for fine speaking and brilliant mili- 
tary display — Their fondness for law and legal forms — Their strict at- 
tendance to religious observances, and wide bounty to religious founda- 
tions — Their honest dealings with each other — Long residence of Ed- 
ward among the Normans in Normandy before his election to the English 
throne 201 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 

Election of Edward to the throne of England — He marries Edith, the 
daughter of Godwin and sister of Harold — Re-establishment of the old 
English laws — Norman favorites at court — Their arrogant manners arouse 
the people's hostility — William, Duke of Normandy — His visit to England 
— Honor done him by Edward and his Norman courtiers — His ambitious 
projects — Death of Godwin — Harold visits Normandy — He is received at 
Rouen with great honor by Duke William — The duke speaks to him of 
Edward's promise to make him his heir to the crown of England, and asks 
his assistance for the accomplishment of that promise — Harold accedes to 
his request, and swears his oath on sacred relics — His return to England — 
Uneasiness of Edward on hearing Harold's account of William's reception 
— Superstitious terror of the English people — Remembrance of fatal pre- 
dictions — Death of King Edward — Election of Harold to the succession — 
Exchange of messages between King Harold and Duke William — The dis- 
pute referred to the Pope — The latter decides in favor of Duke William — 
Rupture of negotiations, and declaration of war — Great military prepara- 
tions — Enrollment of men from all parts in William's army — Departure of 
the Norman fleet — Landing of the Norman army at Pevensey — The Eng- 
lish army moves to meet the enemy — The opposite armies in camp the 
night before battle — The battle of Hastings — Victory of the Normans — 
Death of Harold — Battle Abbey — The Norman army moves on to London — 
Ravages and cruelties committed by the conquering soldiery — William pro- 
claimed King of England — Immediate results of the conquest — Confisca- 
tion of property — Division of the spoils among the Normans — Seizure 
of English domains — Disposal of English heiresses — Great wealth and 
high titles bestowed on William's followers — The native population re- 
duced to beggary — The whole country covered with Norman citadels and 



xvi CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

fortified castles — Fearful sufferings of the native English — More than one 
hundred thousand die from hunger and disease — Some of the survivors, 
once illustrious among their countrymen, sell themselves and their families 
into perpetual slavery to escape starvation — Others emigrate to the north 
and south of Europe, or take to the forests and the mountains — Cruel pun- 
ishment of English partisans and political outlaws — Great influx of French 
adventurers into England — Introduction of foreign prelates into English 
bishoprics — Contemptuous treatment of the natives by the foreign clergy — 
Threatened insurrection of the English— Shrewd concessions of William — 
He revives the laws of Edward — Futility of the concessions — Treacherous 
applications of the law — Norman greed and spoliation — Towns and vil- 
lages farmed out to the highest bidders — Final disposal of all landed prop- 
erty — The domesday-book — General aspect of the conquered country — 
Various conquests compared — Nature of the Norman conquest — William's 
advantage in the enterprise — English opinions as regards the justice of his 
claim — His original plans of occupation modified by circumstances — 
Eventual results of the conquest — Development of the national resources 
— Establishment of schools and institutions of learning — Rich endowments 
for their maintenance — Establishment of abbeys and monasteries — Nor- 
man activity in the cause of education — Erection of magnificent edifices — 
Old churches demolished and restored on a grander scale — Improved taste 
in art and in works of permanent utility — Agriculture — Commerce — Tyran- 
nical enforcement of the law ... 214 



CHAPTER VII. 

GROWTH AND DECLINE OF THE NORMAN FRENCH IN ENGLAND. 

The distinction of race between Normans and English kept up by the 
difference of language long after the assimilation of social and political in- 
terests — The teachers for a long time are nearly all French clergymen — 
French and Latin are the only languages taught — Neglect of the native 
English idiom — Wealth, power, and higher intellect in England remain 
French for many generations — The working classes are among the first to 
pick up some words of French — Shopkeepers and tradesmen find it to their 
interest to know some French to secure Norman custom — The larger cities 
soon become bilingual — The most eminent French poets and minstrels re- 
pair to England — Anglo-Norman compositions take the lead in French 
literature — They impart a greater uniformity to the French as spoken in 
England — Its first degeneration owing to an admixture of English words 
and to a loss of accent — Both become noticeable in thirteenth century 
documents — The wrong accent is followed by the contraction of words 
and the omission of certain vowel-sounds — English words applying 
to English matters occur in the laws of William — English words be- 
come very numerous in the statutes at large — Statute of Edward III 
making English the national language — Is drawn up in French, and so 



CONTENTS. xvii 



all statutes continue to be during the reign of Edward III and Richard 
II — Their letters and dispatches are all in French — Oxford students con- 
fined in conversation to either French or Latin — The first great cause of 
the decline of Anglo-Norman French to be found in the separation of Nor- 
mandy from England — The emigration of French literary men and poets 
becomes less easy and less frequent — Anglo-Norman poets lose their for- 
mer grace and facility — Native poets begin to write French poetry — Some 
translate imported French literature — Others compose in their vernacular 
English — French and English compositions of the time compared — The 
study of English introduced into the schools — The increased currency of 
English sensibly affects the Norman-French — Its decline is for a time re- 
tarded by the presence in England of Charles of Orleans and the nobles 
and poets in their suite who were made prisoners at Azincourt — The use 
of French becomes more and more confined to the court and the aristocra- 
cy — It remains the official language in the high courts of Parliament — Civil 
cases continue to be tried in English, and recorded in French — Lawyers' 
French — Anglo-Norman French in Chaucer's time — English gradually 
takes its place — In the first half of the fifteenth century public acts begin 
to be drawn up indifferently in English or in French — The first English 
bill in the lower house of Parliament bears date A. D. 1485 — The last pub- 
lic document in French bears date A. D. 1488 — Letters, wills, epitaphs, 
law reports, etc., are found written in French up to A. D. 1600 — The 
fashionable use of French begins to be more a French fashion than a 
Norman tradition — Henry VIII, the last English king who proclaimed 
French the court language and required a knowledge thereof in all persons 
applying for office — The first French grammar written under his auspices 
by Palsgrave, and published in London, A. D. 1530 — The first French dic- 
tionary published also in England by Cotgrave, A. D. 161 1 — The royal 
assent to acts of Parliament is still given in French 252 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SPECIMENS OF ANGLO-NORMAN FRENCH. 

Remarks on the reading of Anglo-Norman manuscripts — A knowledge 
of modern French insufficient for a correct understanding of Anglo-Nor- 
man French — The Lord's Prayer, from the psalter of William the Conqueror 
— Laws of William the Conqueror — Henry I, Urbanus ou F home poly — Ge- 
offroi Gaimar, Histoiredes Rois Anglo- N or mands — Robert Wace, Roman de 
Rou — Beneoit de Sainte-More, Histoire des dues de Normandie — Evrard, 
Distiques de Caton — Guillaume Herman, La Creation — Guichard de Beau- 
lieu, Nativit'e du Christ — Richard Coeur de Lion, Servantois — Marie de 
France, Fable — Robert Grosse-Teste, AlUgorie — Gauter de Bibblesworthe, 
Anglo-Norman Grammar — Political Song in French and English, mixed 
— Hymn to the Virgin in French and Latin, mixed — Political Song in 
French, Latin, and English, mixed — Statute of Edward LLL authorizing 
2 



xviii CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

the use of English in civil suits — John Gower, Ballade — Peter Langtoft, 
Histoire des Bretons — Norman Proverbs, etc., still current in English — 
Will of a Gentleman at the end of the fourteenth century 269 



CHAPTER IX. 

FUSION OF ANGLO-NORMAN FRENCH AND ANGLO-SAXON 
ENGLISH. 

The history of the vernacular English literature almost a blank for a 
century and a half after the Norman conquest — French and Latin are the 
principal literature of the period — The great mass of early French litera- 
ture was published in England — For a time, French threatens to displace 
the old vernacular English — It is eventually absorbed by the latter — 
Changes in the vernacular English when it re-appears in written form — The 
changes involve, I, an infusion of Norman words and idioms, and, 2, a 
general disintegration of the older forms of language — Infusion of foreign 
words and phrases — Commenced even before the Conquest — After the 
Conquest, a knowledge of French is indispensable for the transaction of 
public business — William tries to learn English — He does not attempt to 
make French the universal language of his subjects — The decline of the 
native English is incidental only — Widespread disintegration of the native 
English after the generation who had seen the arrival of the Norman had 
died out — Words relating to ordinary life subsist ; literary terms are for- 
gotten — Without schools or cultivated classes it is impossible to keep up a 
standard of correct speaking and writing — Neglect of grammatical rules 
and admixture of foreign terms appear even in the Anglo-Saxon Chroni- 
cle — The English people begin to adopt French Christian names — Eng- 
lish family names — Their origin and meaning. 

After the loss of Normandy, the blending of families and interests leads 
to a blending of idioms — The use of French words in early English trans- 
lations shows that such words were then generally understood — The mixed 
language begins to be used by the Normans themselves — After the statute 
of Edward III, proclaiming English the national language, the influx of 
French words and phrases is greater than ever before — Causes of this 
increasing admixture of foreign terms — Agencies at work to produce the 
fusion of both idioms — Business and fashion — The clergy — The doctors — 
The lawyers — The arts of war and chivalry — Fashionable literature — The 
growing love for foreign terms and euphemism — The mixture of French 
and English words in the sentences extends also to the words themselves 
and parts thereof — English roots with French suffixes — French roots with 
English suffixes — French verbs with English terminations conjugated after 
English fashion — French words thus Anglicized become part and parcel of 
the new national language — Some are found even in the earliest English 
compositions after the Norman conquest — The land of Cockaigne — Robert 
of Gloucester — Adam Davie — The earl of Warwick — Robert of Brunne — 



CONTENTS. xix 

PAGE 

Richard Hampole — William Langland — Wyclif — Chaucer — The language 
of Chaucer — Great difference between northern and southern English — 
Works written in one of these dialects need translation to be understood 
by people speaking the other — The midland counties partake of the peculi- 
arities of both — Many anomalies in modern English are owing to this 
diversity of speech — Words of Norman origin especially subject to mispro- 
nunciation — Strange instances thereof — Disguised origin of many words of 
Norman importation. 

Nature and amount of Norman influence in transforming the ancient 
speech of England into modern English — Loss of inflections and neglect 
of grammatical rules found in Anglo-Saxon English long before the Nor- 
man conquest — Difference between the spoken and the written language 
in the seventh and eighth centuries — Great dialectic differences the cause 
of grammatical inaccuracy — Intermingling of dialects destructive to inflec- 
tions — Laying the accent on or near the initial syllable may be traced to 
Danish influence — It causes the concluding syllable to fall into obscurity 
— The leveling of the terminal vowels involves the loss of inflections — The 
use of prepositions in combination with inflections occurs in Anglo-Saxon 
writings — Phonetic changes in English words due far more to Danish than 
to Norman influence — Great license of language and of spelling found in 
Anglo-Saxon writings — Anomalies of Anglo-Saxon grammar — Changes 
which mark the transformation of the old speech of England into modern 
English — Similar changes have taken place in the cognate continental idi- 
oms — Natural tendency of every language to replace inflections by prepo- 
sitions — Modern English substantially formed by the end of the fourteenth 
century 292 



CHAPTER X. 

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND ITS VOCABULARY. 

The English loss of territory on the continent favorable to the improve- 
ment of the national language — Introduction of the art of printing — It 
produces a greater uniformity of language — The fifteenth century not fa- 
vorable to the cultivation of letters in England — The revival of learning 
— The French mania for antiquity finds its way also into England — Great 
influx of Greek and Latin words — English fondness for new and foreign 
terms — Influence of the Renaissance and the Reformation — Theological 
controversy carried on in the people's language — French controversial 
pamphlets translated into English — They lead to an increased use of 
French and Latin terms — Many foreign words thus introduced have not 
been retained in the language — The immoderate use of foreign terms dis- 
countenanced by leading English authors — New influx of French words 
with the Restoration — Most French words of that period relating to art, 
criticism, and fashion have been retained — Swift's opposition to the ex- 
cessive use of French and Latin words in English — To protect the Ian- 



XX CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

guage from further corruption, he proposes the establishment of an Acade- 
my in imitation of the Acadtmie Francaise — Addison's satire on the use of 
French words and military phrases in official reports — Johnson's dictionary 
— Gibbon's vocabulary — Modern technology — Revival of old English words 
preserved in local dialects — Proportion of words of various origins in the 
English vocabulary — However composite, the language is English not the 
less, and remains classified as a member of the Low-Dutch division of Ger- 
man — Reasons for this classification — The term "Anglo-Saxon" used to 
designate modern English, and ' ' Latin " to denote the language of the 
Normans, may mislead students — Importance of a correct classification 
of words according to their origin — The language of a people is of itself 
alone no test of race — The history of the formation of a language is essen- 
tially the history of the people who speak it and of those who have spoken 
it — They mutually shed light upon each other, and may be studied con- 
jointly to great advantage 360 



CHAPTER XI. 

SPECIMENS OF EARLY ENGLISH. 

Remarks on the reading of ancient English manuscripts — The Anglo- 
Saxon Chronicle — Nothing known about its origin and history up to the 
end of the ninth century — King Alfred its probable originator — Its first 
and its last entry — Facsimile of a manuscript page of the Chronicle pre- 
served in the British Museum — The Lord's Prayer in Anglo-Saxon from 
Eadfrith, A. D. 700 ; from Alfred, A. D. 875 ; in Danish-Saxon, A. D. 900 ; 
in Old English, A. D. 1160 — An Old English homily — Layamon's Brut — 
The Ormulum — The Ancren Riwle — Version of Genesis and Exodus — The 
Owl and the Nightingale — Havelok the Dane — Robert of Gloucester — Rob- 
ert Mannyng — Richard Hampole — Laurence Minot — William Langland 
— John Maundeville — John de Trevisa — John Wyclif — Peres the Plough- 
man's Crede — Thomas Wymbelton — English and Latin lines mixed — John 
Gower — Jeffrey Chaucer — John Barbour — Thomas Occleve — John Lydgate 
— The Maister of Oxford 's catechism — Bill of fare in 1452 — Old English 
gastronomy — Miscellaneous scraps — Proverbs — Receipts — Notes of ownership 
— William Caxton 377 



CONTENTS. xxi 

APPENDIX. 

FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 
CHAPTER I. 

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE. 

PAGE 

Early inhabitants of Gaul — Celts ; Iberians ; Aquitanians ; Gauls ; Bel- 
gians — The Gauls outnumber all the other tribes — The Greek colonies in 
Gaul — The Roman conquest — Gaul becomes a Roman province — Spread 
of Latin throughout all Gaul — Roman schools and Gallic Latin authors 
— The establishment of Christianity assists in spreading the Latin lan- 
guage — The native Celtic idiom gradually dies out — It survives in Brittany, 
where it is still vernacular — The universality of Latin detrimental to its 
purity — Difference between popular and literary Latin — Spread of the for- 
mer among the country people— The Teutonic invasions — Franks ; Bur- 
gundians ; Visigoths — Conversion of Clovis to Christianity — Extent of the 
Frankish dominion — The Salian and Ripuarian Franks speak the ancient 
Dutch and Flemish ; the Austrasian Franks speak the old High-German — 
The former mingle more freely with their Gallo-Roman subjects, and more 
readily fall in with their manners and their language — Franks and Romans 
compared — The leading men among the Franks learn to speak and write 
Latin — The Lingua Romana Rustica — Is a mixture of Celtic, Latin, and 
Teutonic, varying in every locality — It originated in Neustria, and spread 
from there throughout all Gaul — The Church sees its importance, and adopts 
it in its teachings — Various councils prescribe the use of Rustic Latin in the 
pulpit — The term Romance — Fragments of early Romance in litanies, scat- 
tered sentences, and glossaries — The Oath of Louis the German — Recorded 
by Nithard, a grandson of Charlemagne, and preserved in the Library of the 
Vatican — It represents the language of Neustria in A. D. 842 — The name 
of Gallo-Romans superseded everywhere by the name of Franks — Latin 
Franks and German Ffanks — First Norman invasion — Dismemberment of 
the empire of Charlemagne — New states formed — Limits and populations 
of the kingdom of France — Second Norman invasion under the leadership 
of Rollo — The French nation in the tenth century — Hugh Capet speaks 
only French, and allows no other language at his court — Langue d'o'il and 
Langue oToc — Leading differences between the two— Principal dialects of 
the Langue d'oil — The dialect of the Ile-de-France becomes the court dia- 
lect — The terms " dialect " and " patois " — The study of the latter impor- 
tant to philologists — Mediaeval French — The University of Paris — The re- 
vival of learning in France — The " Ple'iade " — Ronsard and his followers 
at home and abroad — The Renaissance — The Reformation — Italian influ- 
ence — Spanish influence — French proclaimed the only official language in 
the country — Religious polemics — Pulpit eloquence — Philosophy — The Aca- 
demie Francaise 457 



xxii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER II. 

ETYMOLOGY. 

PAGE 

Etymology ; Philology ; Linguistics — Strong family resemblance be- 
tween French and Latin — The French vocabulary — Its foreign element — 
Words of Celtic origin — Some of them introduced through the Latin — The 
order of ideas to which they generally refer — The Celtic still a living lan- 
guage in Brittany as it is in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales — Celtic local 
names — Celtic literature — Nature and amount of Celtic influence on the 
formation of the French language — Words of Teutonic origin — They de- 
note habits, manners, and occupations quite different from those of Celtic 
origin — They bear the stamp of the conqueror, and belong to a higher 
order of ideas — Their nature and classification — Teutonic and Scandi- 
navian local names — Teutonic influence on the formation of the French 
language — Words of Greek origin — First introduced through the literary 
Latin ; next through the Christian Church and the Crusades — Sayings and 
proverbs common to both Greek and French — Modern technology mainly 
derived from the Greek — Words of Semitic origin — Hebrew ; Turkish ; 
Arabic — Words of Italian origin — Their nature and classification — Words 
of Spanish origin — Their nature and classification — Words of English 
origin — Their nature and classification — The main bulk of the French 
vocabulary, and the leading features of the language, are of Latin deri- 
vation — Origin of the Latin language — The written and the spoken Latin — 
The latter becomes the Lingua Romana Rustica, and is the foundation of 
the French language — Ecclesiastical and mediaeval Latin — Low Latin — 
The parts of speech — How changed from Latin into French — Permutation 
of vowels and consonants — Quantity and accent — List of words illustrating 
the transformation of Latin terms into French — Principal characteristics of 
the French language. . 517 

CHAPTER III. 

SPECIMENS OF EARLY FRENCH. 

Remarks' on the reading of ancient French manuscripts — The Oath of 
Louis the German — Facsimile of the original MS. in the Vatican Library 
— Cantilene de Sainte Eulalie — Chanson de Roland — Admonition — Sermon 
— Traduction des Psaumes — Les quatre Livres des Rois — Saint Bernard — 
Maurice de Sully — The Lord's Prayer in twelfth century French — Reg- 
nault de Coucy — Joffroi de Villehardouin — Thibaut IV de Navarre — 
Guillaume de Lorris — Jehan de Meung — Translation of the Stabat Mater in 
thirteenth century French — Jehan de Joinville — Jehan Froissart — Charles 
d'Orleans — Olivier Basselin — Francois Villon — Philippe de Comines — 
Clement Marot — Francois Rabelais — Pierre de Ronsard — Le Loyal Servi- 
teur — Pierre de Brantome — Michel de Montaigne 593 



LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED AND QUOTED 
WITHOUT CONTINUED REFERENCE. 



J. Bosworth, Anglo-Saxon and English \ 

Dictionary. 
K. Bartsch, Chrestomatie de VAncien 

Francais. 
A. de Belloquet, Ethnoghiie gaulois. 
A. Brachet, Dictionnaire Etymologique 

de la Langue Francaise. 
G. R. Burguy, Grammaire de la Langue 

d'Oil. 
A. de Chevallet, Origine et Formation 

de la Langue Francaise. 
R. Cotgrave, A French and English 

Dictionnarie (1611). 
A. de Courson, Histoire des Peuples 

Bretons. 
G. L. Craik, Manual of English Lit- 
erature. 
L'Abbe de la Rue, Essais Historiques 

sur les Bardes, les Jongleurs, et les 

Trouveres. 
M. Depping, Histoire des Expeditions 

Maritime s des Normands. 
F. Diez, Etymologise he s Worterbuch 

der Romanischen Sprachen. 
Ch. Du Cange, Glossarium medics et 

infima Latinitatis. 
J. Earle, The Philology of the English 

Language. 
C. Elton, Origins of English History. 
E. A. Freeman, History ofilie Norman 

Conquest of England. 
J. R. Green, The Making of England. 
E. Guest, On the Early English Settle- 
ments in South Britain. 
H. Hallam, Europe during the Middle 

Ages. 
A. Houze, Atlas universel historique 

et geographique. 
J. M. Kemble, The Saxons in Eng- 
land. 
J. F. A Kinderling, Geschichte der 

Neidersachsischen oder sogenamtnten 

Plattdeutschen Sprache. 



C. Knight, Pictorial History of Eng- 
land. 

J. Ten Doorkaat Koolman, Worter- 
buch der Ostfriesischen Sprache. 

S. Laing, The Heimskringla ; trans- 
lated from the Icelandic of Snorro 
Sturleson. 

J. M. Lappenberg, Geschichte von 
England 

P. Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire uni- 
versel du XIXe siecle. 

E, Le Hericher, Glossaire Etymolo- 
gique Anglo-Norman. 

R. G. Latham, The Ethnology of the 
British Islands. 

S. S. Laurie, The Rise and Early 
Constitution of Universities. 

H. Leo, Local Nomenclature of the 
Anglo-Saxons. 

E. Littre, Dictionnaire de la Langue 
Francaise. 

P. H. Mallet, Histoire du Danemarc. 

G. P. Marsh, Lectures on the English 
Language. 

E. Matzner, Altenglishe Sprachproben. 

G. Metivier, Dictionnaire Franco-Nor- 
mand. 

P. Meyer et G. Paris, Romania. 

R. Morris, Specimens of Early Eng- 
lish. 

E. Muller, Etymologishes Worterbuch 
der Englischen Sprache. 

F. Max Muller, Lectures on the Science 
of Language. 

F. L. K. Oliphant, Old and Middle 

English. 
F. Palgrave, History of Normandy and 

England. 
J. Palsgrave, Lesclaircissement de la 

Langue Francoyse (1530). 
R. Pauli, Pictures of Old England. 
M. Raynouard, Lexique Roman. 
J. Rhys, Celtic Britain. 



xxiv LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED AND QUOTED. 



J. B. B. Roquefort, Glossaire de la 
Langue Romane. 

G. Saintsbury, History of French Lit- 
erature. 

A. H. Sayce, Introduction to the Sci- 
ence of Language. 

M. Scheie de Vere, Studies or Glimpses 
of the Inner Life of our language. 

A. Scheler, la Transformation Fran- 
caise des Mots latins. 

A. Schleicher, Sprachvergleichende Un- 
tersuchungen. 

W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dic- 
tionary of the English Language. 

W. F. Skene, The Highlanders of 
Scotland. 

W. Spalding, History of English Lit- 
erature. 

Spruner-Menke, Hand- Atlas fur die 
geschichte des Mittelalters u?id der 
neueren Zeit. 

F. H. Stratmann, A Dictionary of the 
Old English language. 

W. Stubbs, The Constitutional History 
of England. 



H. A. Taine, Histoire de la littirature 
Anglaise. 

I. Taylor, Greeks and Goths j a Study 
of the Runes. 

Am. Thierry, Histoire des Gaulois. 

Aug. Thierry, Histoire de la Conquite 
de I Angle terre par les Normands. 

B. Thorpe, Northern Mythology. 

Sharon Turner, History of the Anglo- 
Saxons. 

T. Tyrwhitt, An Essay on the lan- 
guage and Versification of Chaucer. 

F. Warton, History of English Poetry. 

H. Wedgwood, A Dictionary of Eng- 
lish Etymology. 

W. D. Whitney, Language and the 
Theory of Language. 

J. J. A. Worsase, The Danes and Nor- 
wegians in England. 

T. Wright, The Celt, the Roman, and 
the Saxon. 

Wright and H alii well, Reliquice An- 
tique. 

K. Zeuss, Die Deutschen unddie Nach- 
barstamme. 



ORIGINS OF 

THE ENGLISH PEOPLE AND OF 

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN. 

Europe has been peopled by successive immigrations 
from the East. Five great waves of population have rolled 
in, each in its turn urging the flow which had preceded 
it farther and farther toward the West. The mighty 
Celtic inundation is the first which we can trace in its 
progress across Europe, forced onward by the succeeding 
deluges of Roman, Teutonic, and Sclavonic peoples, till 
at length it was driven forward into the far western ex- 
tremities of Europe. 

The Celts found in Britain at the time of the Roman 
invasion were of two kinds, namely : the Gauls, that is, 
the Celts who came from what is now France and Bel- 
gium ; and the Gaels or Celts of an earlier migration, 
whose colonies were found in every part of the British 
Islands that was not held by the Gaulish nations. Dis- 
persed among all these various tribes of Celtic origin, 
there were remnants of other nations of pre-historic times, 
and traces of these races are still discoverable here and 
there among the living. 

It was once a general belief among the English peo- 
ple that they were the lineal descendants of the Low- 
German tribes which, during the fifth and sixth centuries, 
came from the shores and flats between the Rhine and 
the Elbe, and who in history are known by the name of 
Anglo-Saxons. This belief, however, has not been sus- 
tained by evidence ; it being now shown that the early 
English conquest, which was assumed to have been one 
of extermination, extended only over half the island of 



2 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

Great Britain, and never touched Ireland. Indeed, the 
older races, which still chiefly occupy their ancient 
homes, but are infused into the English by a thousand 
ties of intercourse and intermarriage, have long since 
formed a vital part of the nation, as much so as the Danes 
and the Normans, who subsequently came to England, 
and, like them, left their impress on the national character 
and language. Thus many anomalies in the vernacular 
will be best accounted for by the fact that the English 
nation is compounded of the blood of many different races, 
and might claim a personal interest not only in the Gaelic 
and Belgic tribes, who struggled with the Roman legions, 
but even in the first cave-men, who sought their prey by 
the slowly-receding ice-fields, and in the many forgotten 
peoples whose relics are explored in the sites of lake-vil- 
lages, or sea-side refuse-heaps, or in the funeral mounds, 
and whose memory is barely preserved in the names of 
mountains and rivers. For it is hardly possible that a 
race should ever be quite exterminated or extinguished ; 
the blood of the conquerors must in time become mixed 
with that of the conquered ; and the preservation of men 
for slaves, and of women for wives, will always insure the 
continued existence of the inferior race, however much it 
may lose of its original appearance, manners, or language. 
According to the authors of the earliest Triads, 1 the 
island which now bears the name of Great Britain was 
originally called the Country of Green Hills, afterward the 
Island of Ho?iey, and later, again, the Island of Bryt or 
Prydain, from which latter word, Latinized, the names of 
Britain and Britannia are supposed to have been derived. 2 

1 The T?iads of the Welsh bards are poetical histories in which the facts 
recorded are grouped in threes, three things or circumstances of a kind being 
mentioned together. 

9 The Celtic aborigines do not seem to have called themselves Britons, nor 
can any complete and satisfactory explanation of the name be discovered in any 
of the Celtic dialects. Its earliest occurrence is found in the pages of Greek 
and afterward Latin writers. The word, however, is foreign both to the Greek 
and Latin speech, but belongs to that family of languages of which the Lapp 
and the Basque are the sole living representatives ; and hence it is inferred that 
the earliest knowledge of the island which was possessed by any of the civilized 
inhabitants of Europe must have been derived from the Iberic mariners of 
Spain, who either in their own ships, or in those of their Punic masters, coasted 
along to Brittany, and thence crossed to Britain, at some dim pre-historic 
period. The name Br-eVa/z-ia contains, it would seem, the Euskarian suffix 
etan, which is used to signify a district or country. We find this suffix in the 
names of many of the districts known to, or occupied by, the Iberic race. It 
occurs in Aqn-?'tan-\z or Aquitaine, in Lus-z'fo/z-ia, the ancient name of Portu- 
gal, in Maur-^/a7Z-ia, the " country of the Moors," as well as in the names of 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 3 

From the remotest antiquity the Island of Prydam or 
Britain appeared to those who visited it to be divided, 
from east to west, into two almost equal portions, of which 
the rivers Forth and Clyde formed the common bound- 
ary. The northern part was called Alben} signifying re- 
gion of mountains ; the other, to the west, bore the name 
of Cymry ; and that of Llcegwria, to the east and south. 
These two denominations were not derived, like the for- 
mer, from the nature and appearance of the soil, but from 
the names of the two races of people who conjointly occu- 
pied almost the whole extent of Southern Britain. These 
were the Cymry 2, and the Llcegwry? or, according to Latin 
orthography, the Cambrians and the Logrians. 

The Cambrian nations claimed the higher antiquity. 
They had come in a body from the eastern extremities 
of Europe, across the German Ocean. One part of the 
emigrants had landed on the coast of Gaul ; the other 
had chosen the opposite shore of the strait, 4 and colonized 
Britain. There they found men of another origin and a 
different language, evidences of which exist even now in 
the names of places foreign to the Cambrian language, as 
well as in the ruins of an unknown age, 5 This primitive 
population of Britain was gradually forced upon the west 
into Wales, and north into Caledonia, by the successive 
invasions by strangers who landed in the east. 

Some of the fugitives crossed the sea, and reached the 

very many of the tribes of ancient Spain, such as the Cerr-etan-i, Ans-etan-i, 
L,al-etan-i, Cos-etan-i, Vesc-itan-i, ~La.c-etan-i, Carp-etan-i, Or-etan-i, ~Bz.st-itan-i t 
Tuxd-etcm-i, Swzss-etan-i, ~E&-etan-\, and others. 

1 Alben, Alban, Albyn, in Latin Albania, are the various forms of the Celtic 
Alb or Alp, " a high mountain," " Gallorum lingua, alpes montes alti vocantur." 
— Isidore of Seville, Orig., 14. 

2 The name, pronounced very nearly like Cicmry among the modern Welsh, 
has been adopted by them to denote their "new nation" in the political sense 
of the word. It is the plural of Cyniro, and means " fellow-countrymen," or 
" confederates" ; and the country is called Cymro, "a federation." 

" A word of protest, once for all, against the modern affectation of writing 
Kelt and Kymry. The former violates the sound principle of following the 
Latin orthography of names made familiar by classic usage, and also attempts 
the vain task of changing a customary pronunciation. The letter stands self- 
convicted of the absurdity of spelling a Welsh name with a letter (K) that does 
not exist in the language." — The Quarterly Review, April, 1885. 

It may be here the proper place to state that, while the text presents the 
subject in its leading features, the notes are intended to afford such additional 
information as will satisfy the wants of the more advanced student. 

3 Supposed to mean " men coming from the Loire." 

4 Fretum Gallicum ; Fretum Morinorum. 

6 These ruins are commonly called Cyttiau y Gwyddelad, " houses of the 
Gaels." 



4 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

large island which was called Erin 1 by its inhabitants, 
and spread to the other western isles, peopled, it is most 
likely, by men of the same race and language as the abo- 
riginal Britons. Those who retreated into North Brit- 
ain found an impregnable asylum in the high mountains 
which stretch from the banks of the Clyde to the extremi- 
ties of the island, and here they maintained their independ- 
ence under the name of Gaels, 2 which they still bear. The 
time at which these movements of population took place 
is uncertain ; but it was at a later period that the men 
called Logrians made their descent, according to the 
British annals, on the southern coast of the island. 

From the same records it appears that they emigrated 
from the southwest coast of Gaul, and derived their ori- 
gin from the same primitive race as the Cambrians, with 
whom their language made it easy for them to communi- 
cate. It would seem that they were kindly received, as, 
to make room for the new-comers, the first colonists 
spread themselves along the borders of the western sea, 
which region thenceforward took exclusively the name of 
Cambria, while the Logrians gave their own name to the 
southern and eastern parts, over which they were dis- 
tributed. After the founding of this second colony there 
arrived a third body of emigrants, sprung from the same 
primitive Celtic race, and likewise speaking the same lan- 
guage, or a dialect differing but little from it. They had 
previously inhabited that portion of Western Gaul in- 
cluded between the Seine and the Loire, and, like the 
Logrians, they obtained lands in Britain without any vio- 
lent contests. To them the ancient annals and national 
poems especially apply the name of Brytkons, or Britons, 
which in foreign tongues served to designate, in a gen- 
eral manner, all the inhabitants of the island. 3 

These nations of one common origin were visited at 
intervals, either in a pacific or hostile manner, by various 
tribes. A band, coming from that part of Gaul which 

1 Ire, Eire, Erie, " west " ; hence Erin, " western island " ; in Latin, ler- 
nia, Hibernia. 

2 More correctly Gadhels, or Gwyddyls. 

3 In ancient times the whole group of islands were called Britain, or the 
Britannic Isles, the two largest being even then distinguished by the names of 
Albion and Ierne. The " Book of the World," a very ancient compilation, 
which was long attributed to Aristotle, describes them in the following passage : 
" In the ocean are two islands of great size, Albion and Ierne, called the Bre- 
tannic Isles, lying beyond the Celti ; and not a few smaller islands around the 
Bretannic Isles and around Iberia encircle as with a crown the habitable world, 
which itself is an island in the ocean." 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 5 

is now called Flanders, compelled to leave their native 
country in consequence of a great inundation, crossed the 
sea, and landed on the Isle of Wight and the adjacent 
coast, first as guests and then as invaders. Another band, 
called Coranians^ who were of Teutonic descent, and 
emigrated from a country which the British annals desig- 
nate as " the Land of the Marshes," sailed up the gulf 
formed by the mouth of the Humber, and established 
themselves on the banks of that river and along the east- 
ern coast, thus separating into two portions the territory 
of the Logrians. Fifty years or more before the Roman 
invasions began, Divitiacus, king of Soissons, and the 
most powerful of all Gaul, extended his dominion over 
the kindred tribes already settled in Southern Britain. 2 
At a period not very remote from the life time of Caesar 
himself, several Belgian tribes had invaded the island 
for purposes of devastation and plunder ; and finding the 
country to their liking, they had remained as colonists 
and cultivators of the soil. Caesar could recognize the 
names of several clans, and could point out the continent- 
al states from which the several colonies had proceeded. 3 
The Gauls of a later generation pushed far to the north 
and west ; but in Caesar's age they had not yet, generally, 
advanced to any great distance from the shores of the Ger- 
man Ocean. The four kingdoms of the Cantii stretched 
across East Kent and East Surrey, between the Thames 
and the Channel, and the whole southeastern district was 
doubtless under their power. The Trinobantes, another 
Belgian tribe, had settled in such parts of the modern 
Middlesex and Essex as were not covered by the oak- 
forests or overflowed by the sea. North of them lay the 
territory of the Iceni, also a Gaulish nation, who had 
seized and fortified the broad peninsula which fronted the 
North Sea and the confluence of rivers at the Wash, and 
was cut off in almost every other direction by the tidal 
marshes and the great Level of the Fens. This region 
included all the dry and higher-lying portions of the dis- 

1 In Celtic, Corraniaid ; in Latin, Coritani, 

2 Apud eos (Suessiones) fuisse regem, nostra etiam memoria, Divitiacum, 
totius Galliae potentissimum, qui cum magna? partis harum regionem turn etiam 
Britannise imperium obtinuerit. — Caesar, De Bell. Gall., ii, c. 4. 

3 Britannia? pars interior ab iis incolitur quos natos in insula ipsa memoria 
proditum dicunt ; maritima pars ab iis qui praedae ac belli inferendi causa ex 
Belgis transierant, qui omnes fere iis nominibus civitatum appellantur quibus 
orti ex civitatibus eo pervenerunt, et, bello illato, ibi remanserunt, atque agros 
colere cceperunt. — Caesar, De Bell. Gall., v, c. 14. 



6 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

trict which was afterward known as East Anglia. The 
other Gaulish nations in Caesar's time were included in 
the Catuvellaunian State, a central kingdom situated to 
the west of Icenia and the territory of the Trinobantes, 
and now generally known by the name of Catyeuchlany, or 
Cape Hani. 

All these nations, though nearly as much civilized as 
their continental neighbors, are reported to have been 
much simpler in their ways, probably on account of their 
not yet having gained wealth by a conquest of the min- 
eral districts. They had not even learned to build regu- 
lar towns, though their kinsmen in Gaul had already 
founded cities with walls, and streets, and market-places. 
What they called a town, or dunum, was still no more 
than a refuge for times of war, a stockade on a hill-top or 
in the marshy thickets. 1 When peace was restored, they 
returned to their open villages, built of high bee-hive 
huts with roofs of fern or thatch, like those which might 
be seen in the rural parts of Gaul. 2 These wigwams were 
made of planks and wattle-work, with no external decora- 
tion except the trophies of the chase and the battle-field : 
for a chief's house, it seems, would be adorned with skulls 
of his enemies, nailed up against the porch, among the 
skins and horns of beasts. The practice was described 
by Posidonius as prevailing among northern nations, and 
he confessed that, though at first disgusted, he soon be- 
came accustomed to the sight. The successful warrior 
would sling his enemy's head at his saddle-bow ; and the 
trophies were brought home in a triumphal procession, 
and were either nailed up outside, or, in special cases, 
were embalmed and preserved among the treasures of 
the family. 3 

As they had but recently settled on the island, we may 
suppose that in features and physique they resembled 
their kinsmen on the continent, and differed in many re- 
spects from the Britons of the preceding migration. All 
the Celts, according to a remarkable consensus of authori- 
ties, were tall, pale, and light-haired ; 4 but, as between the 

1 Caesar, De Bell. Gall., v, c. 21. 2 Strabo, iv, 297. 

3 The Museum of Aix contains bas-reliefs representing Gaulish knights car- 
rying home the heads of their enemies ; and on a coin of the ^Eduan Dubnorix 
" le chef tient a la main une tete coupee! — Napoleon, Vie de Char, ii, 36, 361. 

4 See Livy, xxxviii, 17, 21 ; and compare the Gauls on the shield of ^neas, 
"golden-haired and decked with gold." 

Aurea csesaries ollis atque aurea vestis, 
Virgatis lucent sagulis. Turn lactea colla 
Auro innectuntur. — Virg. sEn. t viii, 659. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. j 

two stocks in question, we learn from Strabo that the 
Gauls were the shorter and the stouter of limb, and with 
hair of a paler color. 1 The accuracy of the old descrip- 
tions of the Gauls, so far at least as concerns the kings 
and the chieftains, has been ascertained by comparing the 
figures that remain upon monuments and medals, and by 
an examination of the skeletons from Gaulish tombs in 
France. The women, especially, were singularly tall and 
handsome: and their approximation to the men in size 
and strength is the best evidence that the nation had ad- 
vanced out of the stage of barbarism. 

The men and women wore the same dress, so far as 
we can judge from the figures on the medals of Claudius. 
When Britannia is represented as a woman, the head is 
uncovered, and the hair tied in an elegant knot upon the 
neck ; where a male figure is introduced, the head is cov- 
ered with a soft hat of a modern pattern. The costume 
consisted of a blouse with sleeves, confined in some cases 
by a belt ; of trousers fitting close at the ankle, and a tar- 
tan of plaid fastened up at the shoulder with a brooch. 
The Gauls were expert at making cloth and linen. They 
wove thin stuffs for summer, and rough felts or druggets 
for winter-wear, which, Pliny tells us, were prepared with 
vinegar, and to have been so tough as to resist the stroke 
of a sword. We hear, moreover, of a British dress, called 
guanacum by Varro, which was said to be woven of divers 
colors, and making a gaudy show. 2 They had learned the 
art of using alternate colors for the warp and woof, so as 
to bring out a pattern of stripes and squares. The cloth, 
says Diodorus, was covered with an infinite number of 
little squares and lines, as if it had been sprinkled with 
flowers, or was striped with crossing bars, which formed a 
chequered design. They seem to have been fond of every 
kind of ornament. They wore collars and torques of gold, 
necklaces and bracelets, and strings of brightly-colored 
beads, 3 and in their style and mode of dress they were 
much governed by fashion. Thus in Caesar's time a ring 

1 Strabo, iv, 273. 

2 See Logan's Scottish Gael, i, c. 6, for an account of the ancient Highland 
dress, and of the manufacture of tartan in the Hebrides. " Bark of alder was 
used for black ; bark of willow produced flesh-color." " Crotil geal" a lichen 
found on stone, was used to dye crimson, " and another, called Crotil dubh, of a 
dark color, only dies a filamot." — Ibid., 237. 

3 Diod. Sic, v, 27 ; " Les Gaulois portaient des colliers, des boucles d'oreil- 
les, des bracelets, des anneaux pour les bras en or et en cuivre, suivant leur 
rang, des colliers en ambre," etc. — Napoleon, Vie de Char, ii, 30. 



8 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

was worn on the middle finger ; but in the next genera- 
tion the fashion changed, and that finger was left bare, 
while all the rest were loaded. 1 

A chief dressed in the Gaulish fashion must have 
been a surprising sight to a traveler. His clothes were 
of a flaming and fantastic hue ; his hair hung down like a 
horse's mane, or was packed forward in a thick shock, if 
he followed the insular fashion. The hair and mustache 
were dyed red with the Gallic soap, a mixture of goat's fat 
and the ashes of beechen logs. 2 They decked themselves 
out in this guise to look more terrible in battle ; but Posi- 
donius, when he saw them first, declared that they looked 
for all the world like satyrs, or wild men of the woods. 

The equipment of the Gauls and Belgians in war has 
been often and minutely described. The shield was as 
high as a man. The helmet was ornamented with horns 
and a high plume, and was joined to the bronze cheek- 
pieces, on which were carved the figures of birds and the 
faces of animals, in high relief. The cuirass was at first 
of plaited leather, and afterward was made of chain-mail 
or of parallel plates of bronze. 3 For offence they wore a 
ponderous saber, and carried a Gaulish pike, with flame- 
like and undulating edges, so as to break the flesh all in 
pieces. Their spears or harpoons often had a double or 
a triple barb, and in addition to these and the bow, dart, 
and sling, their ordinary missile equipment, they had 
some other weapons, of which the use is more difficult to 
explain. Strabo mentions, for instance, a kind of wooden 
dart, 4 used chiefly in the chase of birds, and which flew 
farther than any ordinary javelin, though it was thrown 
without the aid of the casting-thong. The mataris was 
another missile, of which the nature is not now clearly 

1 Galliae Brittanniseque in medio (annulum) dicuntur usae. Hinc nunc 
solus excipitur ; ceteri omnes onerantur, atque etiam privatim articuli minori- 
bus aliis. — Plin., Hist. Nat., xxxiii, 24. 

2 Prodest et sapo, Galliarum hoc inventum rutilandis capillis ; fit ex sebo 
et cinere. Optimus fagino et caprino. — Plin., Hist. Nat., xxviii, 12. The same 
wash or dye was used by the Batavi and other Teutonic tribes. — Spuma Batava. 
Mart. Epig., viii, 23. Caustica Teutonicos ascendit spuma capillos. — Ibid., 
xiv, 26. 

3 For the Gaulish weapons, see Diod. Sic, v, 30 ; Strabo, iv, 197. " Le 
Musee de Zurich possede une cuirasse gauloise formee de longues plaques de 
fer. Au Louvre et au Musee de Saint-Germain il existe des cuirasses gauloises 
en bronze. ... La cotte de mailles etait une invention gauloise." — Napoleon, 
Vie de Cisar, ii, 34. 

4 "Effri 8e /cat yp6(T(pct) Souths £i>\ov, 4k x €l P^ s °^ K H ayxfays 4<pUp.£vov, Trj\c- 
fcK&repov Kal jSeAovs, $ fxaXiffra Kal rrpbs ras bpviwv xP^ vrai Q"hpaS' — Strabo, 
iv, 197. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. g 

understood. It may be the weapon which is depicted on 
some Gaulish coins, where a horseman is seen throwing- a 
lasso, to which a hammer-shaped missile is attached ; and, if 
the supposition is correct, it will explain many obscure pas- 
sages in ancient writings, where the weapon is described 
as returning to the hand of the person who cast it. 1 

The scythed chariots, or covini, should be noticed in 
this connection. They seem to have been low, two- 
wheeled carts, drawn by two or four horses apiece, on 
which a number of foot-soldiers, or rather dragoons, 
could be carried within the enemy's line. The captain 
or driver of the chariot was in command of the party. 
The charioteers drove at full gallop along the enemy's 
front, and sought to confuse his ranks by the noise of the 
charge, and the danger of being run down or caught by 
the scythes attached to the chariots. The drivers in the 
mean time drew off and formed a line, behind which their 
men could rally in case of need. These tactics appear to 
have been peculiar to the British Gauls, the inland Brit- 
ons being accustomed to rely upon their infantry, and the 
continental Gauls being fonder of the cavalry arm. The 
Romans were not so much impressed with the use of the 
bronze scythes, which they had often seen in Gaul, as 
with the novelty of the whole manoeuvre and the wonder- 
ful skill of the drivers. " They could stop their teams at 
full speed on a steep incline, or turn them as they pleased 
at a gallop, and could run out on the pole and stand on 
the yoke, and get back to their place in a moment." 2 

1 The mataris is described in the same passage of Strabo, Marapls iraKrov 
rt eT8os. Cicero mentions it as a distinctive weapon of the Gauls. — Ad Her., 
iv, 32. Among the weapons which returned to the thrower were the club of 
Hercules, which was supposed to be attached to a lasso : see Servius on Virg., 
s£n.,\i\, 741, "Teutonico ritu soliti torquere cateiam." In connection with 
the above, notice the following passage from the Origines of Isidore of Seville, 
which is chiefly remarkable for its omission of the lasso mentioned by Servius. 
" Clava est qualis fuit Herculis, dicta quod sit clavis ferreis invicem religata, et 
est cubito semis facta in longitudine. Hsec est cateia, quam Horatius Caiam 
dicit. Est genus Gallici teli ex materia quam maximelenta: quas jactu qui- 
dem non longe, propter gravitatem evolat, sed ubi pervenit vi nimia perfringit. 
Quod si ab artifice mittatur, rursus redit ad eum qui misit. Hujus meminit Vir- 
gilius, dicens ' Teutonico ritu, etc' Unde et eas Hispani ' Teutones ' vocant." — 
Isid. Orig., xviii, c. 7. The interest of the question lies in the fact that these 
reflexive missiles are sometimes confused with the Australian boomerang, which, 
if skilfully cast, will wheel back in the air to the thrower ; and several strange 
ethnological theories have been founded on this supposition. — See Ferguson's 
Essay on the Antiquity of the Boomerang. 

8 Caesar, De Bell. Gall., iv, 33 ; Tac. Agric., c. 12 ; compare Lucan, 

" Optima gens flexis in gyrum Sequana frenis, 
Et docilis rector rostrati Belga covini." — Lucan, Pharsal, i, 425. 

3 



IO ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

The British Gauls appear to have been excellent farm- 
ers, skilled as well in the production of cereals as in stock- 
raising, and the management of the dairy. Their farms 
were laid out in large fields, without inclosures or fences ; 
but they had learned to make a separation of the pasture 
and arable land, and to apply the manures which were 
appropriate to each kind of field. Their stock was much 
the same as that which their successors used for many 
years afterward ; their cattle were mostly of the small 
Welsh breed, called the " Celtic short-horn " ; and their 
horses, or ponies as we should rather call them, were used 
apparently for food as well as for purposes of draught. 

With the aid of these details, we can form a reason- 
ably clear idea of the life of the people, which will be 
further illustrated by the following lively sketch from a 
work in which all the descriptions are based on the au- 
thority of ancient writers. " The time of year is the end 
of the summer, when the oats and rye were reaped, and 
the lawns and meadows round the homesteads had been 
mown. The cattle are on the downs or in the hollows 
of the hills. Here and there are wide beds of fern, or 
breadths of gorse, and patches of wild raspberry with 
gleaming sheets of flowers. The swine are roaming in 
the woods and shady oak-glades, the nuts studding the 
brown-leaved bushes. On the sunny side of some cluster 
of trees is the herdsman's round wicker house, with its 
brown conical roof and blue wreaths of smoke. In the 
meadows and basins of the sluggish streams stand clusters 
of tall old elms waving with the nests of herons ; the bit- 
tern, coot, and water-rail are busy among the rushes and 
flags of the reedy meres. Birds are ' churming ' in the 
wood-girt clearings, wolves and foxes slinking to their 
covers, knots of maidens laughing at the water-spring, 
beating the white linen or flannel with their washing- 
bats, the children play before the doors of the round 
straw-thatched houses of the homestead, the peaceful 
abode of the sons of the oaky vale. On the ridges of the 
downs rise the sharp cones of the barrows, some glisten- 
ing in white chalk or red with the mold of a new burial, 
and others green with the grass of long years." * 

About one half of what is now England belonged in 

The scythed chariots were common in Gaul, and their remains have not unfre- 
quently been found in the tombs of the Gaulish chieftains. They are said to 
have been used in Persia, and may have been introduced by the Greeks of Mar- 
seilles. l Barnes, Notes on Ancient Britain, 53. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. u 

the time of Julius Cassar to tribes of Gaulish origin, and 
comprised the best and most fertile parts of the island. 1 
The eastern and southern districts especially, having the 
advantage of climate and of a constant intercourse with 
Gaul, were among the more civilized ; they were densely 
populated, 2 and the people seem to have been compara- 
tively rich and prosperous. Different it was in the north- 
ern and western parts of Britain, where the climate was 
rude and the people poor. When the island fell under 
Roman power, its whole western and northern coasts 
were little better than a cold and watery desert. Ac- 
cording to all the accounts of the early travelers, the sky 
was stormy and obscured by continual rain, the air chilly 
even in summer, and the sun during the finest weather 
had little power to disperse the steaming mists. The 
trees gathered and condensed the rain ; the crops grew 
rankly but ripened slowly, for the ground and the atmos- 
phere were alike overloaded with moisture. The fallen 
timber obstructed the streams, the rivers were squan- 
dered in the reedy morasses, and only the downs and hill- 
tops rose above the perpetual tracts of wood. 

Under these circumstances, Gaels and Gauls vastly 
differed in manners, costumes, and in language, accord- 
ing to their surroundings and their mode of existence. 
Rich soil and pasturage make shepherds, dairy-men, and 
farmers ; the mountain and the forest, on the contrary, 
make warriors and hunters ; while the sea-shore, with its 
fishermen and sailors, has other aims and interests, which 
make them unlike both, though all may have been origi- 
nally of one blood and one speech. Thus the Gaelic 
tribes, while differing in many particulars from their 
Gaulish brethren, differed considerably among themselves, 
owing to local influences, which prevented their attaining 
a uniform standard of culture. 

Among the most civilized of the Gaelic tribes we no- 
tice, in the first place, the Damnonians of Devon and Corn- 
wall, and their neighbors, the Durotriges, who have left a 
vestige of their name in the modern Dorchester and Dor- 
set. Both these tribes, it seems, were isolated from their 
eastern neighbors by a wide marsh of woods and fens, 

1 The tract of country over which the English, in the beginning of the sev- 
enth century, ruled south of the Humber, coincided almost exactly with the 
Gaulish portions of Britain. — L. Rhys, Lectures, 185. 

2 Hominum est infinita multitudo, creberrimaque asdificia. — Caesar, De Bell. 
Gall., v, 12. 



12 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

which probably helped to preserve for them that superi- 
ority of culture which distinguished them from the inland 
tribes. Diodorus informs us that these southern nations 
had been taught to live " in a very hospitable and polite 
manner by their intercourse with the foreign merchants." 
The Greeks came for their minerals, the Gauls for furs 
and skins and the great wolf-dogs which they used in 
their domestic wars. There must have been many other 
sources of information from which the natives could learn 
what was passing abroad. There were students from 
Gaul constantly crossing to take lessons in the insular 
Druidism ; the slave-merchants followed the armies in 
time of war, the peddlers explored the trading-roads to 
sell their trinkets of glass and ivory, and the traveling 
sword-smiths and bronze-tinkers must have helped in a 
great degree to spread the knowledge of the arts of civil- 
ized society. Thus the Damnonians had the advantages 
of trade and travel. It appears from a passage in Caesar's 
" Commentaries " that their young men were accustomed 
to serve in foreign fleets and to take part in the Continental 
wars. The nation had entered into a close alliance with 
the Veneti, or people of Vannes, whose powerful navy had 
secured the command of the Channel. A squadron of 
British ships took part in the great sea-fight which was 
the immediate cause or pretext of Caesar's invasion of the 
island ; and his description of the allied fleet shows the 
great advance in civilization to which the Southern Brit- 
ons had attained. " The enemy," he said, " had a great 
advantage in their shipping ; the keels of their vessels 
were flatter than ours, and were consequently more con- 
venient for the shallows and low tides. The forecastles 
were very high, and the poops so contrived as to endure 
the roughness of those seas. The bodies of the ships 
were built entirely of oak stout enough to withstand any 
shock or violence. The banks for the oars were beams of 
a foot square, bolted at each end with iron pins as thick 
as a man's thumb. The sails were of untanned hide, either 
because they had no linen and were ignorant of its use, 
or, as is more likely, because they thought linen sails not 
strong enough to endure their boisterous seas and winds." * 
We are told by a later writer that the ships and their sails 
were painted blue, for the purpose of making them less 
conspicuous at a distance. 

1 Caesar, De Bell. Gall, iii, 9, 13. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



13 



Advancing northward, we find the Silurians across the 
Severn Sea, the Demetce, the Dobuni of the Vale of Glou- 
cester, and the Cornavii, who held a narrow territory be- 
tween the Malvern Hills and the mouth of the Dee. 
None of these tribes appear to have shared in the culture 
which the Damnonians had gained from their intercourse 
with foreigners What little commerce they undertook 
was carried on in frail curraghs, in which they were bold 
enough to cross the Irish Sea. Boats of that kind are 
still used in Ireland, with the substitution of tarred can- 
vas for the original covering of bull's hide. All these 
tribes were probably of a mixed race, if we may judge 
from the persistence of the Silurian features among the 
modern population of the district. Their neighbors, the 
Ordovices, on the contrary, were a nation of Gaelic de- 
scent, and are sometimes described as holding all North 
Wales. Next we come to a central region, bounded on 
the south by the Gaulish kingdoms, and on the north by 
the Brigantian territories, and belonging to a mixed as- 
semblage of tribes, who became known under one name, 
as the nation of the Coritavi. They consisted in part of 
Celtic clans, and in part of the remnants of a ruder peo- 
ple. Caesar says that most of these people were mere, 
savages, that they grew no grain at all, but lived on meat 
and milk, and were clad in the skins of beasts. 1 The Celts 
in the midland districts may possibly have lived in per- 
manent villages, raising crops of oats or some rougher 
kind of grain for food, and weaving themselves garments 
of hair or of coarse wool from their puny, many-horned 
sheep ; but the ruder tribes, who subsisted entirely by 
their cattle, would naturally follow the herd, living 
through the summer in booths on the higher pasture- 
grounds, and only returning to the valleys to find shelter 
from the winter storms. They were an utterly barbarous 
people, too careless to trouble themselves with agricult- 
ure, 2 as if they had no patience to wait for the turn of 
the seasons, and preferred to trust to the chances of war 
for food and plunder. They disfigured themselves with 
woad, 3 and this fashion seems to have survived even in 

1 Caesar, De Bell. Gall., v, c. 14. 

8 Tacitus, Ann., xiv, c. 38. 

3 The woad-plant, called vitrum from its use in trie manufacture of glass, 
has properties like those of indigo. " The herb usually yields a blue tint, but 
when partially deoxidated it has been found to yield a fine green ; the black 
color was a third preparation, made by the application of a greater heat." — 
Herbert's Britannia, lvi. 



I 4 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

some districts conquered by the Gauls. The men used it 
as a war-paint, staining their faces and limbs blue and 
green, to look more ghastly and terrible, for, like savages 
in general, they thought that an enemy could never with- 
stand an army of such grim aspect. 1 

To the north of the Coritavi stretched a confederacy 
or collection of kingdoms, to which the Romans applied 
the name of Brigantia. We first hear of these confederate 
states about the year 50, when their combined territo- 
ries extended from one coast to the other, its northern 
boundary closely following the line of Hadrian's Wall. 
The people seem to have been comparatively rich and 
prosperous, and so eminent were they in war that they 
repeatedly repulsed the advance of the Imperial legions. 
Seneca boasted that the Romans had bound with chains 
of iron the necks of the blue-shielded Brigantes ; but it 
was long before these turbulent tribes were actually sub- 
dued, and even in the second century they seem to have 
preserved some remains of their ancient liberty. 

The story of Queen Cartismandua is the best illustra- 
tion of the character and habits of these people. The lux- 
ury of her court may have had no existence except in the 
fancy of Tacitus : but the barbarian queen was doubtless 
rich in her palace of wicker-work, in a herd of snow-white 
cattle covering the pastures of the royal tribe, an enam- 
eled chariot, a cap or a corselet of gold. She was the 
chief of one of the many tribes of which the Brigantian 
nation was composed. At a time when every valley had 
its king with an army of villagers, an ale-house council, 
and a precarious treasure of cattle gained and held by the 
law of the strongest, it was seldom possible for the nation 
to unite in any common design, even for the purpose of 
resisting the peril of a foreign invasion. The gathering 
of a national army was an affair of meetings, and treaties, 
and solemn sacrifices to the gods. When the sacred rites 
were fulfilled, the blood tasted, and the rival deities and 
chieftains united by a temporary bond, the noblest and 
bravest of the tribal leaders was chosen as a war-king or 
general in command. But as often as not the treaty failed 
and the clans fought or submitted as each might feel in- 
clined. " Our greatest advantage," said Tacitus, " in deal- 

1 Tac. Gerni.^ c. 43 ; Caesar, De Bell. Gall., v, c. 14, Compare the " Virides 
Britannos " of Ovid, Amor., ii, 16, 39 ; the " Cserulum Saxona " of Sidonius, 
viii, 9 ; and the vermilion-painted Goths described by Isidore of Seville, Orig. t 
xix, 23. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 15 

ing with such powerful nations is that they can not act in 
concert ; it is seldom that even two or three tribes will 
join in meeting a common danger ; and so, while each 
fights for himself, they are all conquered together." 1 

As the Romans advanced westward in their British 
conquests, they observed that certain tribes were different 
in manners and appearance from the Gaulish and the In- 
sular Celts ; and they were led, by a mistaken estimate of 
the vicinity of Ireland to Spain, to account for this fact by 
the hypothesis of a Spanish migration. " Who were the 
original inhabitants of Britain," says Tacitus, " and wheth- 
er they sprang from the soil or came from abroad, is 
unknown, as is usually the case with barbarians. Their 
physical characteristics are various, and from this con- 
clusions may be drawn. The red hair and large limbs of 
the Caledonians point clearly to a German origin. The 
dark complexion of the Silures, their curly hair, 2 and the 
fact that Spain is the opposite shore to them, are evidence 
that Iberians of a former date crossed over and occupied 
those parts." 3 The Irish bards had some remembrance 
of this passage, and played upon the similarity of such 
local names as Braganza and Brigantes, Hibernus and 
Iberia, Gallicia and Galway ; and it became an article of 
faith among their countrymen that the island was discov- 
ered soon after the flood by three Spanish fishermen, 
which tradition, even now, is not unfrequently pressed into 
the service of the theory that the dark population in parts 
of the British Islands and the Basques of the Pyrenees are 
descended from one common stock. No Spanish origin, 
however, is attributed in any of these legends to the 
Fern-Bolg or Fir-Bolgs, who are identified in many other 
traditions with the original stock, typified in the short and 
swarthy people of the western and southwestern parts of 
Ireland. 4 

Whether or not the Fir-Bolgs of Irish tradition can be 
connected with the pre-Celtic tribes, it is certain that in 

1 Olim regibus parebant, nunc per principes factionibus et studiis trahun- 
tur. Nee aliud adversus validissimas gentes pro nobis utilius quam quod in 
commune non consulunt, etc. — Tacit., Agr., xii. 

2 Colorati vultus et torti plerumque crines. — Tacitus, Agric, c. ii. " Sylo- 
rum colorati vultus, torto plerique crine et nigro nascuntur .... qui Hispa- 
nis a quibusque attenduntur similes." — Jornandes, De Getar. Orig., c. ii. 

3 Compare note, page 3. 

4 A celebrated antiquary named Duald Mac Firbis, who compiled genea- 
logical works in 1650 and 1666, mentions the remnant of the Feru-Bolg. 
" There are many of their descendants till this very day in Ireland," he says, 
" but their pedigrees are unknown." 



1 6 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

many parts of Ireland there are now remnants of a short, 
black-haired stock, whose physical appearance is quite 
different from that of the tall, light Celts. The same thing 
has been observed in the Scottish Highlands and in the 
Western Isles, where the people have a " strange, foreign 
look," and are " dark-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and 
small in stature." 1 And it is a matter of familiar knowl- 
edge, that in many parts of England and Wales the people 
are also short and swarthy, with black hair and eyes, and 
with heads of a long and narrow shape. This is found 
to be the case not only in the ancient Siluria, but in sev- 
eral districts in the eastern Fen country, and in the south- 
western counties of Cornwall and Devon ; and the same 
fact has been noticed in the midland counties, where we 
would expect to find nothing but a population with light 
hair and eyes, and where the names of the towns and vil- 
lages show that the Saxon and Danish conquerors occu- 
pied the districts in overwhelming numbers. These facts 
render it extremely probable that some part of the Neo- 
lithic population has survived in England until the present 
time, with a constant improvement, no doubt, from its 
crossing and intermixture with the many other races who 
have successively passed into the island. 

The nations of pre-historic Britain have been classified 
according to a system derived from the history of the 
metals. The oldest races were in the pre-metallic stage, 
when bronze was introduced by a new nation, sometimes 
identified with the oldest Celts, but now more generally 
attributed to the Finnish or Ugrian stock. The periods 
of pre-historic time, the duration of which is unknown, 
but which are distinguished by the transitions from the 
possession of polished flint and bone to that of bronze, 
and afterward of iron and steel, are usually divided into, 
i, the Palaeolithic, or earlier portion of the Stone Age; 
2, the Neolithic, or later portion of the Stone Age ; 3, the 
Bronze Age ; and 4, the Age of Iron — a division based 

1 McLean, Highland Language and People, Journ. Anthr. Inst., vii, 76 : 
" In these respects the Highland people bear a strong resemblance to the 
Welsh, the Southwestern English, the Western and Southwestern Irish." — 
{Ibid.) Campbell, West Highland Tales, iii, .144, speaks of the short, dark 
natives of Barra : " Behind the fire sat a girl with one of those strange foreign 
faces which are occasionally to be seen in the Western Isles, a face which re- 
minded me of the Nineveh sculptures, and of faces seen in St. Sebastian. Her 
hair was as black as night, and her clear dark eyes glittered through the peat- 
smoke. Her complexion was dark, and her features so unlike those who sat 
about her, that I asked if she were a native of the island, and learned that she 
was a Highland girl." 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



U 



upon a methodical examination of the various remains of 
these early ages found in different parts of the world. 

We need not describe in detail the relics of the Palaeo- 
lithic tribes who ranged the country under an almost arc- 
tic climate, waging their precarious wars with the wild 
animals of the Quaternary Age. The searching of their 
caves and rock-shelters, and of the drifts and beds of loam 
and gravel, has brought to light great numbers of their 
flint-knives, stone-hammers, and adzes, and instruments 
for working on leather. Their rough dug-out canoes are 
found in the mouths of the estuaries. The beads and 
amulets, and the sketches of the mammoth and groups of 
reindeer which have been found in some deposits, show 
that they were not without some rudiments of intelli- 
gence and skill ; at any rate, they were equal to pressing 
necessity, and could trap and defeat the larger carnivo- 
rous animals of the time. The little we know as yet of 
these early tribes, renders it impossible to prove satisfac- 
torily any continuity of race between them and people 
now found in England or anywhere else in Europe. 1 

In this respect far more is known of the Neolithic 
Age, on which so much research has been of late years 
expended, that we can form some clear idea of the habits 
of the people of that time, of the nature of their homes, 
and even of their physical appearance. 

The most important relics of that period are the great 
mounds or Tombs of the Kings, the vaults and tribal 
sepulchres, which remain still buried in earth or denuded, 
such as the cromlechs? dolmens? and standing stones, all 
round the British Islands and along the opposite coasts. 
The mounds have been, in most cases, disturbed by early 
treasure-hunters, or by persons searching for saltpeter, or 
by farmers who required the mold for the purpose of 
agriculture. The massive structures of stone which were 
thus laid bare have been the subject of all kinds of fanci- 
ful theories about serpent-worship and the ritual of the 
Druids ; and in former ages they were generally regarded 
with superstitious feelings, which now linger among the 
most ignorant peasantry. The way in which the crom- 

1 Good descriptions of the Palaeolithic societies will be found in U Homme 
primitifhy Figuier, and in L'Homme pendant les Ages de la Pierre by Dupont. 

* In Welsh, " an incumbent flagstone," compounded from crom, " crooked, 
bending," hence, " laid across," and Heck, " a flagstone." It was supported like 
a table by other stones set on end. 

3 The usual name of these monuments in Brittany ; from the Celtic dot, 
" table," and men, " stone," 



1 8 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

lechs were regarded by the Celts in Britain may be in- 
ferred from the archaic superstitions which survive among 
the Bretons of the Leonnais, a district chiefly colonized 
by emigrants from Britain, where the peasant-women 
make offerings for good fortune in marriage to the 
fairies and dwarfs who are believed to haunt these 
relics of past ages. 

The tombs of the Neolithic Age in England are of 
two kinds, distinguished by the absence or presence of a 
stone vault or a series of such vaults. The huge un- 
vaulted mounds of Dorset and South Wilts are thought 
to have been built as tribal graves by the earliest of 
the immigrants from Asia. They were built for the most 
part in picturesque and striking situations, that they 
might be seen from far and wide. The vaulted tombs, 
or the ruined remains of their chambers, are found in 
all parts of the south of England, in North Wales, and 
in the north of Scotland. According to a prevalent 
opinion, these vaulted tombs were copied from subter- 
ranean houses, constructed to supply the want of natural 
caves. It has been doubted, indeed, in many cases, 
whether the Picts-houses in Scotland, and the Irish Clock- 
dns, which resemble them, were tombs or subterranean 
houses, some being furnished with seats and recesses, 
which can hardly be regarded as other than the abodes 
of the people by whom the barrow was constructed ; oth- 
ers being too narrow and ill-ventilated to serve for any- 
thing but tombs. 

It is seldom that relics of any great importance are 
found in British barrows of these early types. The list 
of discoveries includes a few delicate leaf-shaped arrow- 
heads, and some other articles of horn and polished stone, 
with some occasional deposits of buck's horns, the tusks 
of boars, skulls of oxen, etc. From the bones which have 
been taken from the tomb, the anatomists have concluded 
that the Neolithic Britons were not unlike the modern Es- 
quimaux. They were short and slight, with muscles too 
much developed for their slender and ill-nurtured bones ; 
and there is that marked disproportion between the sizes 
of the men and women which indicates a hard and miser- 
able life, where the weakest are overworked and con- 
stantly stinted in their food. The face must have been of 
an oval shape, with mild and regular features ; the skulls, 
though bulky in some instances, are generally of a long 
and narrow shape, depressed sometimes at the crown, and 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 



19 



marked with a prominent ridge from back to front, like 
the keel of a boat reversed. 

These sepulchral discoveries show that at some early 
time these Neolithic tribes were alone in their possession 
of Britain ; and that afterward they were invaded by the 
men of a different race, who had already seized the do- 
minions on the opposite coasts along the Atlantic ; for 
suddenly, and without the appearance of any intermediary 
forms, the tombs are discovered to contain bronze weap- 
ons of a fine manufacture. Hence the appearance of 
these people in England seems to be coincident with the 
introduction of this metal ; for all the graves where it is 
found contain their remains, either alone or in company 
with those of the Neolithic people ; but where the bones 
of the Stone-Age men are buried by themselves, no trace 
of the metal weapons has ever yet been discovered. 

The people of this second race were tall men of the 
fair Finnish type that still prevails so largely among the 
modern inhabitants of Denmark and in the Slavonian 
countries. They differed remarkably from the straight- 
faced, oval-headed men who are identified with the Celts 
and Anglo-Saxons of early English history. They were 
large-limbed and stout, the women being tall and strong 
in proportion, as in a community where life was easy and 
food cheap. The men appear to have been rough-feat- 
ured, with large jaws and prominent chins, and skulls of 
a round, short shape, with the forehead, in many cases, 
rapidly retreating. They seem to have mingled peace- 
ably with the people of the older settlements, for the bar- 
rows of the Bronze Age contain almost an equal propor- 
tion of long-shaped and short-shaped skulls ; and it is 
reasonably argued that this is evidence that the new 
occupants agreed and intermarried with the people of the 
older type, especially as skulls have not unfrequently been 
found which combine the characteristics of these different 
kinds of men. 

The barrows of the Bronze Age are found in almost 
every part of England. They vary slightly in form, be- 
ing for the most part bowl-shaped in the north, and oval 
or bell-shaped in the south. Their exploration has pro- 
duced a great body of evidence to illustrate the life of the 
Bronze- Age Britons. It is clear that they were not mere 
savages, or a nation of hunters and fishers, or even a peo- 
ple in the pastoral and migratory stage. The tribes had 
learned the simpler arts of society, and had advanced to- 



20 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

ward the refinements of civilized life, before they were 
overwhelmed and absorbed by the dominant Celtic peo- 
ple. They were, for instance, the owners of flocks and 
herds ; they knew enough of weaving to make clothes of 
linen and wool, and, without the potter's wheel they could 
mold a plain and useful kind of earthenware. The stone 
hand-mills, and the seed-beds found in Wales and York- 
shire, show their acquaintance with the growth of some 
kind of grain ; while their pits and hut-circles prove that 
they were sufficiently civilized to live in regular villages. 

At what time and by what process they became incor- 
porated with the Celtic peoples must remain altogether 
uncertain. Where the rule of cremation has prevailed, it 
is difficult to distinguish their ornaments and weapons 
from those of the Celtic type ; and even where a round- 
headed population actually survives, it is usually hard to 
separate it from the stock of the later Danes. It is clear, 
however, that the older Bronze-Age tribes remained in 
some parts of England as late as the period of Roman in- 
vasion ; and it seems probable that future investigation 
will confirm the theory that the languages of the Celts in 
Britain were sensibly influenced by contact with the 
idioms of those Finnish tribes who were the earlier occu- 
pants of the country. 

The Celtic languages are for the most part dead, and 
of some even the tradition is now almost forgotten. 
Those which survive are found in Wales and Ireland, in 
some parts of the Scotch Highlands, in the Isle of Man, 
and in Brittany. Of those that are dead we may men- 
tion, for England, the Pictish and the Welsh 1 of Strat- 

1 Welsh is not a Celtic word, but the name given by all Teutonic tribes to 
foreigners, and more particularly to the conquered Latin and Celtic nations. 
In Anglo-Saxon, weal, wealh, meant " a bondman, a slave " ; hors-wealh, " a 
groom " ; and wyln, wylhen, " a female slave " ; showing the low servile con- 
dition to which the old inhabitants of Britain had become reduced under Saxon 
dominion. Thus we read in the Leges Ince, art. 78 : " Si servus waliscus angli- 
cum hominem occidat." The Celtic idiom of Wales is still called Cytnraeg by 
those who speak it ; but the Anglo-Saxons called it Wilsc, Willisc, Wcelisc, and 
the people who spoke it, IValas, whence the English Welsh and Wales. In the 
reign of Edward the Confessor, his French friends and visitors were called by 
the contemporary annalist " tha Welisce menn," and he himself was said by the 
chronicler to have come " hider to lande of Weallande." So the Germans of 
the Continent call all the Italians and their language Welsch. In Luther's ver- 
sion of the Bible, Acts x, i, we read : " Cornelius, ein Hauptmann von der 
Schaar, die da heist Welsche," for " Cornelius, a centurion of the band called 
the Italian band," as reads the English version. The name of Walloons in Bel- 
gium, of Canton Wallis in Switzerland, and Wallachia are probably so derived. 
Walsh is still in use as a surname. See pages 208 and 484. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



21 



clyde, and the Cornish or West-Welsh, which died out in 
Devon in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and finally disap- 
peared in Cornwall a little more than a century ago, 
though many of the words are still in use among the 
country people. To this branch belongs the Bas-Breton 
or Brezonec of Brittany, which is still a living language 
there. 1 There are traces and remnants, besides, of sev- 
eral idioms which may be all classified as Gaulish ; simi- 
lar forms were once used in Thrace and Galatia, 2 and 
others in Celtiberia, of which we can only know that they 
were confused by intermixture with the lost languages 
of Spain. 

The surviving Celtic dialects, in England as well as in 
France, possess a large mass of literature, which is, in 
great part, no doubt, of comparatively modern production, 
but, some of it claiming in its substance, if not in the very 
form in which it now presents itself, an antiquity tran- 
scending any other native literature of which the country 
can boast. The following extracts are the Gaelic, Irish, 
Welsh, and Manx versions of the passage in St. Luke, 
chapter vii, verses n to 17, which refers to the resurrec- 
tion of the widow's son at Nain, and which are extensive 
and varied enough to be taken as fair specimens of the 
dialects represented : 



SCOTCH-GAELIC. 

n. Agus tharladh an las 'na 
dheigh sin, gu'n deachaidh e 
chum baile d'an goirear Nain ; 
agus chaidh a dheisciobuil mail- 
le ris, agus sluagh mbr. 

12. A nis an uair a thainig 
e'm fagus do gheatadh a' bhaile, 
feuch, ghiulaineadh a mach 
duine marbh, aon mhac a mha- 
thar, agus bu bhantrach i ; agus 
bha sluagh mbr do mhuinntir a' 
bhaile maille rithe. 

13. Agus an nair a chunnaic 
an Tighearn i, ghabh e truas 
dith, agus thubhairt e rithe, Na 
guil. 



IRISH. 

1 1. Agus tharla an la 'na dhi- 
aigh sin, go ndeachaidh se 
do'n Chathruigh d'a ngoirthear 
Nairn : Agus do chuadar Moran 
d'a dheisciobluibh leis, agus bui- 
dhean mhor. 

12. Agus an tan thdinig se a 
ngar do dhoras na caithreach, 
feuc, do bhi deune marbh aga 
bhreith amach, do bhi 'na aon 
mhac aga mhathair, agus i 'na 
baintreabhaigh ; agus do bhi 
coimhthionol mor 6'n chath- 
ruigh 'na fochair. 

13. Agus ar na faicsin do'n 
Tighearna, do ghabh truaige 
mhor di 6, agus a dubhairt se 
ria, Na guil. 



See page 464. 



2 See page 457. 



22 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



14. Agus thainig e agus bhean 
e ris a' ghiulan (agus sheas iad- 
san a bha 'ga iomchar) agus 
thubbairt e, Oganaich, a deirim 
riut eirich. 

15. Agus dh'eirich an duine 
bha marbh 'na shuidhe, agus 
th6isich e air labhairt ; agus 
thug e d'a mhathair e. 

16. Agus ghlac eagal iad uile ; 
agus thug iad gloir do Dhia, ag 
radh Dh' eirich faidh m5r 'nar 
measg-ne ; agus, Dh'amhaire Dia 
air a Shluagh fein. 

T7. Agus ehaidh an t-iom- 
radh so mach airsan air feadh 
Judea uile, agus na ducha m'an 
cuairt uile. 

WELSH. 

11. A bu drannoeth, iddo ef 
fyned i ddinas, a elwid Nam ; a 
chyd ag ef ye aeth llawer r'i 
ddisgy blion, a thyefa fawr. 

12. A phan ddaeth efe yn 
agos at borth y ddinas, wele un 
marw a ddygid allan yr hwn 
oedd unig fab ci fam a honno 
yn weddw : a bagad o bobl y 
ddinas vedd gyd a hi. 



13. A'r Arglwydd pan y gwe- 
lodd hi, a gymmerodd, druga- 
redd ami, ac a ddywedodd 
wrthi, Nac wyla. 

14. A phan ddaeth attynt, efe 
a gyffyrddodd a'r (elor a'r rhai 
oedd yn ei dwyn, a safasant), 
ac efe a ddywedodd y mab 
ieuange, yr wyf yn dywedyd 
wrthyt, Cyfod. 

15. A'r marw a gyfodold yd 
ei eistedd, ac a ddechrenodd la- 
faru, ac efe a'i rhoddes i V 
fam. 



14. Agus thainic se agus do 
bhean se ris an gcomhraidh : 
(agus do sheasadar an luchd 
do bhi aga iomchar), agus a 
dubhairt se, A oganaigh, a dei- 
rim riot, eirigh. 

15. Agus d'eirigh an duine 
marbh 'na Shuidhe, agus do 
thionnsgain s6 labhairt, agus do 
thug se* d'a mhathair fein e. 

16. Agus do ghabh eagla iad 
uile : agus tugadar gloir do 
Dhia, ag radh, d'eirghe faidh 
mor an ar measg : agus D'feuch 
Dhia air a phobal fein. 

17. Agus do chuaidh au tua- 
rasgbhail so amach air feadh 
thire Iudaighe uile, agus air 
feadh gach eintire timcheall. 

MANX. 

11. As haink eh gy-kione yn 
laa er-giyn, dy jagh eh gys ard- 
valley va enmyssit Nain ; as hie 
ymmodee jeh e ynseydce marish, 
as mooarane sleih. 

12. Nish tra haink eh erger- 
rey da giat yn ard-valley, 
cur-my-ner, va sleih cur Ihien 
magh dooinney marrvo, va ny 
ynrycan mac da e voir, as 
v'eeish ny ben-treoghe : as va 
ymmodee jeh sleih yn ard-val- 
ley maree. 

13. As tra honnick y Chiarn 
ee, ra chymmey echey urree, as 
dooyrt eh r'ee, Ny jean keay- 
ney. 

14. As haink eh, as venn eh 
rish y carbyd (as hass adsyn va 
fo) as dooyrt eh, Ghooinney 
aeg, ta mee gra rhyt Trree. 



15. As hoie yn dooinney mar- 
roo seose as ren eh toshiaght 
dy loayrt; as livrey eh eh gys 
e voir. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



23 



16. Ac ofn a ddaeth ar bawb ; 16. As haink aggie orroo ooil- 
a hwy a ogoneddasant Dduw, ley ; as hug ad moylley da Jee, 
gan ddywedyd, Prophwyd mawr gra, Ta phadeyr mooar er n'irree 
a gyfododd yn ein plith; ac seose ny mast, ain; as Ta Jee 
Ymwelodd Duw a'i bobl. er yeeaghyn er e phobble. 

17. A'r gair hwn a aeth allan 17. As hie yn geo shoh magh 
am dano trwy holl Judea, a my-e-chionc trovid ooilley Ju- 
thrwy gwbl o'r wlad oddi am- dea, as trovid ooilley yn cheer 
gylch. mygeayrt. 

In another part of this volume 1 we give the Breton 
version of the same passage, which, though coming near- 
est to the Welsh, differs from it as much as all modern 
Celtic dialects differ among themselves. Still, in Caesar's 
time there was a striking similarity between the language 
of the Gauls on both sides of the straits, especially be- 
tween the dialect of the men of Kent and that of their 
kinsmen across the water, with only such differences as 
would naturally be found in colonies long separated from 
their parent-states. Tacitus informs us that these differ- 
ences were but slight, 2 and Pliny, having to mention a par- 
ticular soil by the name in which it was known in both 
countries, makes no distinction between the two idioms. 3 
Finally, we know from Caesar that the Gaulish Druids 
who wished to obtain a more special knowledge of Druid- 
ism went to Britain to learn there by heart a large num- 
ber of verses containing the higher doctrines of the Brit- 
ish Druids. 4 This similarity, however, was confined to 
the Gaulish nations, there being, even at that early time, 
a marked difference between their dialect and the Welsh 
and Irish, though all bore marks of a common descent 
from some primitive Celtic original. At one time, it is 
true, the Welsh and the Gaulish much resembled each 

1 See page 543. 

2 Britanniam qui mortales initio coluerint, indigenae an advecti, ut inter 
barbaros, parum compertum. ... In universum tamen aestimanti, Gallos vici- 
num solum occupasse credibile est ; eorum sacra deprehendas, superstitionum 
persuasione ; sermo hand multum diversus. — Tacitus, Agtic, xi. 

3 Alia est ratio quam Britannia et Gallia invenere alendi earn (terram) ipsa ; 
quod genus vocant margam. Spissior ubertas in ea intelligitur ; est autem qui- 
dam terra? adeps, ac velut glandia in corporibus, ibi densante se pinguidinis 
nucleo. — Plin., xvii, 4. 

4 Disciplina (druidum) in Britannia reperta, atque inde in Galliam translata 
esse existimatur ; et nunc, qui diligentius earn rem cognoscere volunt, plerum- 
que illo, discendi causa, proficiscuntur. — Caesar, De bello Galileo, vi, 13. Mag- 
num ibi numerum versuum ediscere dicuntur (druides). Itaque nonnulli annos 
vicenos in disciplina permanent ; neque fas esse existimant ea litteris mandare. 
— Caesar, De bello Galileo, vi, 14. 



24 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

other, and an intimate connection between the Welsh and 
Gaulish nations was inferred from the similarity of their 
languages, 1 especially in those points in which they both 
differed from the oldest Irish. But on closer investiga- 
tion it appears that the Welsh and Irish languages, centu- 
ries before, resembled each other in the very points in 
which they afterward differed ; and came, in fact, as near 
together as the Welsh afterward came to the Gaulish. 
Many forms of the ancient Welsh, moreover, have been 
recovered from sepulchral inscriptions, bearing epitaphs 
in the same Ogham character as is used in the oldest Irish 
inscriptions. 2 

This identity between the earliest forms of Welsh and 
Irish renders it highly probable that the nations were once 
united. There are many indications that at one time they 
possessed a common stock of religious and social ideas; 
nor, indeed, is there any evidence against their original 
unity, except the fact that their languages became differ- 
ent in form. But length of time and remoteness in place 
introduce wonderful changes in a language. In the lapse 
of centuries many differences would naturally grow up 
between the nations separated by the sea, and possibly 
in each case by contact with the peoples whom they found 
already in possession. One chief difference would, of 
course, consist in a gradual divergence of idiom. Every 
language must continually change and shift its form, ex- 
hibiting, like an organized being, its phases of growth, 
maturity, decline, and decay ; and, in the case of these 
divided peoples, it is hardly to be supposed that their un- 
written idioms would follow precisely the same course of 
phonetic alteration. There is no reason to disbelieve in 
their original unity, merely because the Welsh insensibly 
approached the Gaulish form ; the Welsh itself broke up, 
during the historical period, into several different dia- 
lects ; and the difference which we have already noticed 
between the modern Scotch, Irish, Welsh, and Manx may 

1 Even as late as the twelfth century, William of Malmesbury noticed but 
a slight difference between Welsh and Breton. " Lingua nonnihil a nostris 
Brittonibus degeneres." — Gesta, i, I. Giraldus, who wrote about the same time, 
calls the Breton an old-fashioned Welsh. " Magis antiquo linguae Britannicae 
idiomati appropriato." — Descr. Cambr., c. 6. 

9 The Ogham character will be explained on page 135. The oldest of the 
Welsh MSS. is the " Juvencus Codex," assigned to the ninth century. There 
are several poems by authors who lived in the sixth century, and who described 
some of the incidents of the Anglo-Saxon Conquest ; but they survive in ver- 
sions of which the language has been considerably modernized. — Skene, Four 
Ancient Books of Wales ; Villemarque, Manuscrits des Anciens Bretons. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 2 $ 

help us to understand how the change of the older lan- 
guage was effected. 

Although the Druids committed nothing to writing, 
the religion of the British tribes has exercised an impor- 
tant influence upon literature. The mediaeval romances 
and the legends, which for a long time stood for history, 
are full of the " fair humanities " and figures of its bright 
mythology. Unfortunately, the history of this religion 
has been obscured by many false theories, which have 
stood much in the way of discovering its true principles. 
According to some, traces of revealed religion have been 
found in the doctrines attributed to the Druids ; others 
have invented for them the mission of preserving mono- 
theism in the West; while others, again, have credited 
them with the learning of Phoenicia and Egypt. Accord- 
ing to their opinion, the mysteries of the " Thrice-Great- 
Hermes " were transported to the northern oak-forests, 
and every difficulty was solved, as it rose, by a reference 
to Baal and Moloch. The lines and circles of standing- 
stones became the signs of a worship of snakes and 
dragons. The ruined cromlech was mistaken for an altar 
of sacrifice, with the rock-basin to catch the victim's blood, 
and a holed-stone for the ropes to bind his limbs. 

The Welsh Triads became the foundation for another 
theory. They profess to record the exploits of a being 
called " Hugh the Mighty," who led the Cymry from the 
Land of Summer to the islands of the Northern Ocean. 
It must be observed, however, that the date of these 
Triads has been approximately fixed by the form of their 
language and by other internal evidence, which prevents 
their being considered as of any authority on the subject 
of early Celtic mythology. Although some few date from 
the twelfth century, it is clear that they mostly belong to 
a period between the conquest of Wales and the rebellion 
of Owen Glendower, whose bard, "Jolo the Red," was 
the chief compiler of the legend of Hugh the Mighty, 
whom the Welsh call " Hu Gadarn." This Hugh seems 
to have been a solar god. His chariot is described as 
"an atom of glowing heat"; he is said to be "greater 
than all the worlds ; light his course and action ; great on 
the land and on the seas ; and his two oxen are bright 
constellations in the firmament." 

The Welsh bards retained a stock of tropes and allu- 
sions, which derived their origin from the ancient British 
paganism ; but an examination of their poems shows that, 
4 



26 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

though their writings are full of mythological allusions, 
they contain nothing which can be treated as a real tra- 
dition of Druidic doctrine. They seem to have been 
founded, in several cases, on some myth of the moon and 
shadows. The white fairy Ceridwen, for instance, makes 
war upon the Prince of the Dwarfs. In one form of the 
story the fairy becomes an old witch, and the dwarf is a 
boy who watches the boiling cauldron. Three drops of 
the liquor of knowledge are tasted by Gwion. Pursued 
at once by the hag, he changes himself into a hare and 
flies; but she transforms herself into a greyhound and 
turns him, whereupon he runs toward the river and be- 
comes a fish, and she, in the form of an otter, chases him 
under water till he is fain to become a bird of the air — 
and so on, in a series of equally interesting adventures, 
which appear in slightly different forms in the Irish sto- 
ries of Finn Mac Cumhal, and likewise among the adven- 
tures of Sigurd, in the " Song of the Nibelungs." The 
Welsh bard borrowed incidents and allusions from every 
kind of literature. The very legend of Hugh the Mighty 
is, in the main, but a travesty of the life of the Patriarch 
Noah, confused by an intermixture of the exploits of Hugh 
of Constantinople, a paladin of romance, who took part 
in the adventures of the legendary armies of Charlemagne. 
In these poems, figures of all times and countries pass in 
a strange procession, among which we recognize several 
personages who once were worshiped as gods in Ireland 
and Western Britain. But it is in vain we look for any- 
thing about the Druids, their very name having been for- 
gotten for centuries before the travesty of their doctrines 
was propounded under the title of Bardism. Nor, again, 
will anything be found about the Gaulish gods, whose 
rites were transported to Britain, at first by the Belgian 
settlers, and afterward by Roman soldiers. For them we 
must rely on the classical descriptions, obscure and scanty 
as they are, to learn what little is known about the nature 
of Gaelic paganism. 

The religion of the Gauls appears to have borne some 
general resemblance to that of the Gaelic tribes. It has 
become known, in part, by the sketch in Caesar's " Com- 
mentaries," by Pliny's chapters on magic, and a few scat- 
tered allusions of the Latin poets ; but in a greater degree 
by the comparison, in modern times, of inscriptions upon 
ruined altars, and of legends and observances, in which 
some fragments of the old creed have been by chance re- 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 2 y 

tained. The Roman writers, indeed, have left us little 
definite information on the subject. They seem to have 
felt a natural contempt for the superstitions of their bar- 
barous neighbors. Cicero, for example, was a friend of 
the Druid Divitiacus ; yet he did not think it worth while 
to record the result of their curious discussions. Julius 
Cassar was himself a pontiff, and published a book upon 
divination, but he noticed the foreign religions only so 
far as they were connected with public policy. He does 
not mention the British religion at all; and we owe 
his short sketch of the Gaulish Pantheon merely to the 
fact that, for political purposes, it was the same as that of 
the Roman world. The greater gods were revered, under 
various titles, by every nation in Gaul ; and their wor- 
shipers held much the same doctrine about them as all 
the rest of the world. A Pluto reigned in Darkness, and 
a Jupiter in Heaven. Mars was the God of War ; Apol- 
lo, Mercury, and Minerva brought precious gifts to man- 
kind. The names of a host of minor deities appear in the 
inscriptions, or are vaguely preserved in the country le- 
gends ; some of them reappear as giants in nursery tales, 
and it seems probable that most of the monsters and 
gigantic figures which adorned the mediaeval processions, 
the traditions of which are not even now entirely obliter- 
ated, were connected with the worship of some local god. 
" The doctrine of the Druids," says Caesar, " is thought 
to have been invented in Britain, and to have been carried 
over to Gaul ; and, at the present time, those who wish to 
gain a more precise knowledge of the system travel to that 
country for the purpose of studying it." Druidism is 
probably to be traced to the race or races which pre- 
ceded the Celts in their possession of the British Isles, 

1 The Gauls were taught by the Druids to call themselves the children of 
Pluto, and the parable may have referred to the idea that all things have come 
from Chaos. Csesar attributed to this belief their practice of reckoning by nights 
instead of days. A birthday, or the first of the month or year, was considered 
to begin at sunset on the previous evening. The habit was common to all the 
northern nations, and seems to have been a natural consequence of the measure- 
ment of time by the moon. The Gauls began their months on the sixth night 
after the moon was new, and just before her face was half-full. — Caesar De Bell. 
Gall., vi, 17; Plin., Hist. Nat., xvi, 98. The year began with the same phase 
of the satellite, and so also did the cycle of thirty years. It follows from 
this that the year consisted of thirteen lunar months, falling short of the true 
solar year by about one day. In the course of about twenty-nine years they 
would have apparently gained a month on the solar year, and in order to 
make the solstices and equinoxes fall within the appropriate lunar months it 
became necessary to intercalate a whole month, or to repeat the thirteenth 
month in the last year of the cycle. 



28 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

and its abnormal character makes it easy to suppose that 
it was devised by the wild Silurians. The Irish word for 
Druid is Draoi, which in Irish literature mostly means " a 
magician," or " soothsayer," and is usually rendered by 
magus in the " Lives of the Saints." Our traditions of the 
Scottish and Irish Druids are evidently derived from a 
time when Christianity had long been established. These 
insular Druids are represented as being little better than 
conjurers, sorcerers, and rain-doctors, who pretend to call 
down the storms and the snow, and frighten the people 
with the " fluttering wisp " and other childish charms. 
They divine by the observation of sneezing and omens, 
by their dreams after the holding of a bull-feast, or chew- 
ing raw flesh in front of their idols, by the croaking of 
their ravens and chirping of tame wrens, or by licking 
the hot adze of bronze taken out of the rowan-tree faggot. 
They are like our Indian medicine-men, or the Angekoks 
of the Esquimaux, dressed up in bull's-hide coats and bird- 
caps with waving wings. The chief Druid of Tara is 
shown to us as a leaping juggler, with ear-clasps of gold 
and a speckled cloak ; he tosses swords and balls in the 
air, just like the athletes and slight-of-hand men that now 
may be seen parading in the circus. 1 

The Gaulish Druids were more cultivated. They 
knew the Greek modes of reckoning, and were probably 
acquainted, to some extent, with the doctrines of Pythag- 
oras. They had gained a political supremacy, their judg- 
ments were taken as the voice of the gods, and they were 
themselves exempt from all earthly service. They were, 
in fact, ecclesiastics of the mediaeval type ; and men of the 
highest rank were eager to belong to their church The 
Druids of Strabo's description walked in scarlet and gold 
brocade, and wore golden collars and bracelets ; 2 but for 
all that their doctrines may have been much the same as 
those of the soothsayers of the Severn, the Irish medicine- 
men, and those rustic wizards of the Loire, whose oracle 
was a sound in the oak-trees, and whose decisions were 
rudely scratched upon the blade-bone of an ox or sheep. 3 

1 See O'Curry, Led., 9, 10 ; and Revue Celtique, i, 261. 

2 Strabo, iv, 275. 

3 In the little comedy of " Querolus," written in the fourth century, the dis- 
contented hero is bidden by the familiar spirit to go to the banks of the Loire. 
" Vade, ad Ligerim vivito. Illic jure gentium vivunt homines : ibi nullum est 
prsestigium ; ibi sentential capitales de robore proferuntur et scribuntur in ossi- 
bus ; illic etiam rustici perorant et privati judicant ; ibi totum licet." The re- 
sponse is, " Nolo jura hsec silvestria."— Querolus, ii, I. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



2 9 



The doctrines of the British Druids seem to have be- 
longed to that common class of superstitions in which the 
magician pretends to have secret communication with the 
spirits, by which he acquires a controlling influence among 
the ignorant and credulous masses. " Britannia to this 
day," said Pliny, "celebrates the art of magic with such 
wondrous ceremonies that it seems as if she might have 
taught the Magi of Persia." 1 These men assumed to be 
interpreters of the designs of Heaven ; and they even used 
a sacred jargon, which passed for the language of the 
gods. They foretold the future by the flight of birds and 
the inspection of victims offered in sacrifice. The Druids 
of Mona used to slay their captives, and tell fortunes 
from the look of their bodies ; they would devote a man 
to the gods, and strike him down with a sword ; and as 
he fell they would gather omens from his mode of falling, 
his convulsive movements, and from the flow of blood 
which followed. If any person of importance were in 
peril from disease or the chance of war, a criminal or a 
slave was killed or promised as a substitute. The Druids 
held that by no other means could a man's life be re- 
deemed or the wrath of the gods appeased ; and they 
went even so far as to teach that the crops would be fer- 
tile in proportion to the harvest of death. It became a 
national institution to offer a ghastly hecatomb at particu- 
lar seasons of the year. The memory of the public sac- 
rifices seems to have been preserved by the Irish proverb, 
in which a person in great danger was said to be " between 
two Beitain fires." 2 In the Highlands, even in modern times, 
there were May-day bonfires, at which the spirits were im- 
plored to make the year productive ; the ritual of the an- 
cient sacrifices has survived in the unconscious heathen- 
ism of the country-people, and relics of the old creed are 
still constantly found in heroic poems and nursery tales. 

1 Plin., Hist. Nat., xxxiii, 21.— The lives of St. Patrick and St. Columba 
are full of their contests with royal magicians, who are called " Druids " in the 
native chronicles. St. Patrick's hymn contains a prayer for help " against black 
laws of the heathen, and against spells of women, smiths, and Druids." By 
women was meant " the witches," and by smiths, " the invisible smiths," who 
shod horses in a cavern if a proper fee was left upon a neighboring stone, usu- 
ally the remains of some cromlech. 

3 Beitain, Beltane, or Beltein, from the Gaelic bealteine, " Bel's fire " — Bel 
being the name for " the sun," and teine meaning " fire." It is a festival of re- 
mote antiquity, still partially observed in Scotland on May 1st, generally among 
trade corporations ; and in Ireland on June 21st, and is supposed to be the relics 
of the worship of the sun, such as kindling fires on hills, or other ceremonies, 
the significance of some of which is not now known. 



30 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

The Gauls had once believed, like their Latin neigh- 
bors, in some shadowy existence of the dead in a Hades 
or Elysium, fashioned after the type of the present world. 
They used to cast on the funeral pyre whatever things 
the dead man had loved, that his spirit might enjoy them 
in the world to come ; and at the end of the funeral his 
favorite slaves and dependents were burned alive on the 
pile, and sent to keep their master company. But in the 
time of Julius Caesar the Druids had learned, or invented, 
a totally different doctrine. They endeavored to per- 
suade their followers that death was but an interlude in a 
succession of lives. In this or in some other world the 
soul would find a new body and lead another human life, 
and so onward in an infinite cycle of lives. Their people, 
they thought, could hardly fail in courage when the fear 
of death was removed. " One would have laughed," said a 
Roman, " at these long-trousered philosophers, if we had 
not found their doctrine under the cloak of Pythagoras." 1 

This doctrine, probably, accounts for certain restric- 
tions by which particular nations and tribes were forbid- 
den to kill or eat certain kinds of animals. It was a crime, 
for instance, in Southern Britain, to taste the flesh of the 
hare, the goose, or the domestic fowl, though it was al- 
lowed to rear and keep them for amusement. 2 The reason 
for the prohibition is unknown, but it should be, proba- 
bly, connected with the fact that in some parts of Europe 
these animals have retained a sort of sacred character. 
Thus in Brittany and in Russia, among the country-peo- 
ple, a fowl is still offered as a propitiation to the house- 
hold spirits, and in the last-named country the goose is 
sacrificed to the gods of the streams. 3 The hare is an ob- 
ject of disgust in some parts of Russia and Western Brit- 
tany, where, not many years ago, the peasants could hard- 
ly endure to hear its name. The oldest Welsh laws con- 
tain several allusions to the magical character of the hare, 
which was thought to change its sex every month or 
year, and to be the companion of the witches, who often 
assumed its shape. In one part of Wales the hares are 
called St. Monacella's lambs, and, up to a very recent 

1 Valerius Maximus, ii, c. 6, compare Lucan's phrase : 
" regit idem spiritus artus 

Orbe alio : longse, canitis si cognita, vitae 

Mors media est." — Pharsal., i, 451. 
* Csesar, De Bell Gall., v, c. 12. 
8 Lang's Essay on the Folk-lore of France ; Revue Celtique, ix, 195. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 31 

time, no one in the district would have dared kill one. 1 
In Ireland, also, St. Colman's teal could be neither killed 
nor injured ; St. Brendan provided an asylum for stags, 
wild-boars, and hares ; and St. Beanus protected the crows 
and hazelhens, which build their nests upon the Ulster 
mountains. 2 

We may notice in this connection the fact that the 
names of several Celtic tribes, or the legends of their 
origin, show that an animal, or some other real or imag- 
inary object, was chosen as a crest or emblem, and was 
probably regarded with a superstitious veneration. A 
powerful tribe or family would feign to be descended 
from a swan, or a water-maiden, or a " white lady," who 
rose from the moonbeams on the lake. The moon her- 
self was claimed as the ancestress of certain families. 
The legendary heroes are turned into " swan-knights," or 
fly away in the form of wild geese. We hear of " grif- 
fins" by the Shannon, and of " calves" in the country 
round Belfast. There are similar instances from Scotland, 
in such names as " clan chattan," or the " wild cats," and 
in the animal crests, which have been borne from the 
most ancient times as the emblems of the chieftains. The 
tribes who fought at Cattraeth are distinguished by the 
bard who sang their praises, as wolves, bears, or ravens ; 
and the families which claim descent from Caradoc or 
Owain take the boar or the raven for their crest. The 
early Welsh poems are full of examples of the kind. 
Aneurin speaks of " Cian the Dog " ; he calls his followers 
" dogs of war," and describes the chieftain's house as " the 
stone, or castle of the white dogs." 8 

It seems reasonable, therefore, to suppose a connec- 
tion between the law concerning the use of certain kinds 
of food, and the superstitious belief that each tribe had 

1 The sacred character of the animal is indicated by the legend of Boadicea, 
who, according to Dion Cassius, "loosed a hare from her robe, observing its 
movements as a kind of omen, and when it turned propitiously the whole mul- 
titude rejoiced and shouted." — Dion Cass., lxii, 3. 

3 Girald. Cambr., Topogr. Hibern., ii, cc. 29, 40. Compare the same writ- 
er's story of the loathing shown by the Irish chieftains on being offered a dish 
of roasted crow. — Conqu. Hibern., i, c. 31. 

8 Aneurin's Gododin, St. 9, 21, 30. There are many traces of the same 
practice among the Teutonic nations. Their heroes were believed, in many 
cases, to have descended from divine animals, like the children of Leda and 
Europa. The pedigrees of the Anglo-Saxon kings contain such names as Sige- 
fugel, Scefugol, and Beorn, which seem to be connected with legends of a de- 
scent from animals. Compare such patronymics as Wolf, Lyon, Stagg, Hogg, 
Hare, Wren, Dering, Harting, Baring, and the like. 



32 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



descended from the animal whose name it bore, and 
whose figure it displayed as a crest or badge. There are 
several Irish legends which appear to be based on the 
notion that a man might not eat of the animal from which 
he or his tribe was named. 1 Such facts suggest inquiry as 
to whether the religion of the British tribes may not, in 
some early stage, have been connected with that system 
of belief under which animals were worshiped by tribes of 
men who were named after them, and were believed to be 
of their breed. This form of superstition prevails at the 
present day among our own Indians, as well as some South 
American tribes, among the natives of Australia, and in 
some of the African kingdoms ; traces of its existence have 
also been found in the early history of the Germans, 
Greeks, and Latins, as well as in the traditions of the Se- 
mitic peoples in Arabia and Palestine. 2 

This brief sketch of early English history will give a 
general idea of the condition of the country and its in- 
habitants at the time of the first Roman invasion, which 
took place fifty-five years before our era. The details 
here presented will enable the student to follow intelligent- 
ly the subsequent vicissitudes of the British nations, first 
under Roman rule, and afterward under Saxon dominion ; 
and enable him to form an opinion as to the degree of 
Celtic influence that may have had its weight upon the 
character, mind, and language of the nation into which 
the original owners of the land have become to a great 
extent absorbed. In order to facilitate reference to the 
relative situation of Britain and the neighboring coun- 
tries, whose people were to play such important parts in 
the island's destinies, and at the same time to avoid the 
confusion arising from maps covered with names belong- 
ing to different epochs, only the permanent features of the 

1 In the story of the death of Ciichulain, contained in The Book of Leinstety 
some witches offer the hero a dog cooked on spits of rowan-wood. Cuchulain's 
name signified " the Hound of Culand," and was connected with the cult of a 
god called " Culand the Smith." The story turns on the idea that " one of the 
things he must not do was eating his namesake's flesh." See the translation of 
the story by Mr. Whitley Stokes, Revue Celtique, iii, 176 ; O'Curry, Mann. Anc. 
hish, ii, 363. 

8 The system mentioned in the text is usually called " Totemism," from 
the word " totem " or " dodhaim" which the Indians apply to the plant, ani- 
mal, or other natural object representing the ancestor and protector of the 
group of persons who share the name and crest. The " totem " may not be 
eaten by any member of the group. Another rule provides that persons with 
the same " totem " may not intermarry. For the theory of the wide distribu- 
tion of " Totemism " among the nations of the ancient world see Encyclopedia 
Btitannica, article, " The Family." 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



33 



land, such as mountains, rivers, sea-coasts, are indicated 
on the map accompanying this chapter. Enlarged copies 
of this map, or parts thereof, made by the student, and 
filled in by himself with historical as well as geographical 
details as the narrative proceeds, will be found far more 
instructive, and will make a more lasting impression. 




34 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF BRITAIN. 

There is something at once mean and tragical about 
the story of the Roman Conquest. Begun as the pastime 
of a reckless despot, and carried on under a false expecta- 
tion of riches, its mischief was certain from the beginning. 
Ill-armed country-folk were matched against disciplined 
legions and an infinite levy of auxiliaries. Vain heroism 
and ardent love of liberty were crushed in tedious and 
unprofitable wars. On the one side stand the petty tribes, 
prosperous nations in miniature, already enriched by com- 
merce and rising to a homely culture ; on the other the 
terrible Romans, strong in their tyranny and an avarice 
which could never be appeased. 

" If their enemy was rich, they were ravenous ; if poor, 
they lusted for dominion ; and not the East nor the West 
could satisfy them." 1 They gained a province to ruin it 
by a slow decay. The conscription and the grinding 
taxes, the slavery of the many in the fields and mines, 
must be set against the wealth and comfort of the few, and 
the empty glory of belonging to the empire. Civiliza- 
tion was in one sense advanced, but all manliness had 
been sapped, and freedom had vanished from the coun- 
try long before it fell an easy prey to the Angles and Sax- 
ons, who founded the English kingdom. 

The first invasions of Julius Caesar had been followed 
by a century of repose. The fury of the civil wars se- 
cured a long oblivion of Britain ; and, when the empire 
was established, the prudence of Augustus forbade the 
extension of the frontier. His glory was satisfied by the 
homage of a few British chieftains who came with gifts 
to the capitol, and the names of the " suppliant kings " 
are still recorded in the imperial inscriptions. The wish 
of Augustus was law to his successors, and for two reigns 
the islanders were left to boast of their alliance with 
Rome. It had become the fashion among the leading 

1 Tacitus, Agricola vita, c. 30. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



35 



Romans to despise a country which was hardly worth a 
garrison. " It would require," said some, " at least a 
legion and some extra cavalry to enforce the payment of 
tribute, and then the military expenses would absorb all 
the increase of revenue." x Others laughed at the exploits 
for which a three-weeks' thanksgiving had once seemed 
barely sufficient. " Divine Csesar," they said, " landed his 
army in a swamp, and fled before the long-sought Brit- 
ons." 2 Too much, it was thought, had been made of a 
march along the high-road and the fording of a stockaded 
river ; the legions had been forced back to the coast by 
an army of chariots and horsemen ; no princes were sent 
as hostages, and no tribute had ever been paid. 

The invasion, however, was of greater importance 
than the critics were disposed to allow, though its effects 
were chiefly seen in an increased commerce with the Con- 
tinent. It was the conquest of Gaul which most affected 
the British nations. The influence of the empire was felt 
and accepted by the continental Celts, and the provincial 
fashions found a crowd of imitators in the rustic kingdoms 
of the Thames. Another result of the conquest was an in- 
crease of the Gaulish settlements in Britain. Commius, the 
Prince of Arras, who once was sent by Csesar as his envoy 
to Britain, took refuge from the Romans on the island 
which he had helped to invade, and the Atrebates were 
thenceforth established on the upper Thames. The Bei- 
ges founded a settlement on the Solent, from which they 
spread westward to the mouth of the Severn, and built 
towns at Bath and Winchester {venta Belgamm). The 
Parisii left their island on the Seine, and settled in the 
fens of Wolverness, "all round the fair-havened bay." 8 
The graves on the Yorkshire coast still yield the remains 
of their iron chariots and horse-trappings, and their ar- 
mor, decorated with enamel and the red Mediterranean 
coral. 4 The prosperity of the native states was indicated 

1 Strabo, iv, 278. 

3 Oceanumque vocans incerti stagna profundi, 
Territa qusesitis ostendit terga Britannis. — Lucan, Phars., ii, 571. 

3 Tlpbs ols irepl rbv €v\l/j.€vov k6\itov, Tlaplfa, Kal ir6\is Tlerovapla. . . . Elra 
'Arpefidrioi Kal tt6\is NaAKova. . . . TlaXiv ro?s ficv 'ATpefSariots Kal rois Kavrlois 
inrSKewTcu 'Frjyvoi, Kal tt6\is NoiS/xayos, reus 8e Aodovvols, BeA/yeu. — Ptolem. Geo- 
graphia, lib. ii, c. iii. The main city of the Parisii was Lutetia Parisiorum, now 
Paris. 

4 Pliny says that coral had been used by the Gauls down to his time for 
ornamenting their armor. — Hist. Nat., xxxii, 11. That the art of enameling 
was not confined to the Continent is shown by a passage in the Imagines of 
Philostratus, where the philosopher informs the Empress Julia Domna that this 



36 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



by the rise of regular towns in place of the older camps 
of refuge, as well as by the increase of the continental 
trade. An advance in metallurgy was marked by the 
use of a silver coinage, by a change from the bronze weap- 
ons to the steel sabers and ponderous spears of Gaul, and 
by the export, not only of their surplus iron, but of the 
precious ores, which were found and worked in the West ; 
and the ultimate conquest was doubtless hastened by the 
dream of winning a land of gold and a rich reward of 
victory. 1 

The immediate cause of the second invasion, however, 
was the discord of the British chieftains. The sons of 
Cymbeline were at war with the house of Commius, to 
whose territory Kent and some bordering districts be- 
longed. A prince of that house sought refuge and ven- 
geance at Rome, and the courtiers of Claudius caught at 
the chance of gratifying their master's vanity. An army 
of four legions 2 was landed on the southern coast, and 
Caractacus and his brothers were driven far to the west 
and afterward back to some great river, which may have 
been the Thames. The capture of Camulodunum, their 
great stronghold, was reserved for the emperor's hand. 
The battle seems to have been arranged with Eastern 
pomp : and elephants clad in mail, and bearing turrets 
filled with slingers and bowmen, marched, for once, in 
line with the Belgian pikemen and the Batavians from 
the island in the Rhine 3 (a. d. 44). 

Claudius returned from an easy victory to a triumph 
of unexampled splendor, which shows the importance at- 
tached to the conquest, and the degree of subjection in 
which it was intended that Britain should be held in the 
future. A ship " like a moving palace " bore him home- 
wards from Marseilles, and the Senate decreed the gift of 
a naval crown to welcome the conqueror of the ocean. 4 
The record of the rejoicings has been preserved, and in- 
scriptions are extant to show the honors and decorations, 

beautiful work was made by the " islanders in the Outer Ocean." — Philost., 
Imag., i, 28. 

1 For an account of the British lead-mines, where most of the silver was 
found, see Pliny, Hist. Nat., xxxiv, 49. The metal, he says, lay like a thick 
skin on the surface of the ground. 

2 On the strength of a Roman legion, see page 43. 

3 The Batavians from the island formed by the Rhine and Maas took a 
prominent part in the conquest of Britain. — Tacitus, Hist, i, 59 ; iv, 12 ; Ann., 
xiv, 38 ; Agric, 18, 36. See page 75. 

4 Pliny, Hist. Nat., iii, 20 ; xxxiii, 16 ; Sueton, Claud., 17. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 37 

the collars, bracelets, and ornaments which were lavished 
on all who had gained distinction in this war. It may be 
even interesting to notice the great display and extensive 
preparations made to celebrate the consolidation of the 
conquest on this occasion. First in the triumph came the 
images of the gods, and the figures of the emperor's an- 
cestors, and then the booty of the war, the crowns sent 
by the provinces, and gifts from all parts of the world. 
Claudius passed in his general's dress of purple, with 
ivory scepter and oak-leaf crown. Messalina's carriage 
followed ; and then came the officers distinguished on the 
field, marching on foot, and in plain robes. On reaching 
th capitol, the emperor left his car, and mounted the 
steps praying, and kneeling, with the help of his sons-in- 
law, who supported him on either side. 1 

Another day was given to games in the circus, and the 
factions were promised as many chariot-races as could 
run between morning and night ; 2 but the number was 
diminished to ten by the time taken up in beast-fights and 
other shows which were more appropriate to the amphi- 
theatre. Bears were hunted and killed, perhaps in allu- 
sion to the war still raging in the northern forests. Gladi- 
ators were matched in single combat between the races ; 
and, as a crowning show, the famous " Pyrrhica " was 
danced by boys of the best families in Asia, who had been 
summoned to take part in the rejoicings. At the sound 
of the trumpet they rushed in, dressed in splendid uni- 
forms, and counterfeited, in the war-dance, all the move- 
ments used in the field, advancing and retreating, and 
breaking rank and wheeling into line again, now seeming 
to bend away from an enemy's blows, and now to hurl 
the spear or draw the bow. 3 

Afterward came the brutal sports, which seemed to 

1 Dion Cassius, lx, 23 ; Sueton, Claud., 17. 

2 As many as twenty-four races were run in one day by Caligula's orders in 
A. D. 37, each race taking about half an hour. The course was seven times 
round the hippodrome. The circus, in the reign of Claudius, was constructed 
to hold about 150,000 persons ; but it was very much enlarged in later reigns. 
— Pliny, Hist. Nat., xxxviii, 24, 101 ; Pausanias, v, 12. 

3 Dion Cass., lx, 30. For descriptions of the " Pyrrhica," see Plato, Leg., 
vii, 18 ; Claudian, Sext. Cons. Honor., 621. "Puelli puellseque virenti florentes 
setatula, forma, conspicui, veste nitidi, incessu gestuosi, Graecanicam saltaturi 
Pyrrhicam dispositis ordinationibus decoros ambitus inerrabant, nunc in orbem 
rotatum fiexuosi nunc in obliquam seriem connexi, et in quadratum patorem 
cuneati et in catervae discidium separati." — Apul. Metamorph., x, 29. " Ut est 
ille in pyrrhica versicolorus discursus quum amicti cocco alii, alii et luto et ostro et 
purpura creti, alii aliique cohaerentes concursant." — Fronto., Epist. ad Cces., i, 4. 



38 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

the Romans to be the chief reward of victory. " It is 
the greatest pleasure in life," Caesar himself had said, " to 
see a brave enemy led off to torture and death." The 
Field of Mars, on the other side of the river, was now 
chosen as the scene of a fresh entertainment. At a place 
where the park was surrounded by water on three sides, a 
fortress was built, in imitation of the walls and stockades 
of Camulodunum ; and the straw-thatched palaces and 
streets of wattled huts were defended, stormed, and 
sacked by armies of British captives reserved to die in a 
theatrical war. Three years afterward, when Plautius 
gained his triumph for the conquest of Southern Britain, 
the massacre was renewed in a somewhat different form. 
The prisoners were enrolled among the heavy-armed 
gladiators, who fought as " Gauls " and " Samnites " 
against the " Thracians," armed with the target, and 
crooked dagger, and retiarii, with nets and harpoons, 
ready to entangle their adversaries as the fisherman 
catches the tunny-fish. 1 Thousands of Britons are said 
to have perished in these combats, and in the chariot 
fights, in which they were compelled to exhibit their na- 
tive modes of warfare. 2 

As the conquest advanced, other uses were found for 
the captives, in the mines and public works, or in military 
service abroad. As early as A. D. 69, a force of 8,000 
Britons was enrolled in the army of Vitellius, and in later 
times we find their levies scattered in all parts of the 
world, in the forts on the Pyrenees and the Balkans, in 
the Household at Constantinople, and along the distant 
frontiers of the African and Armenian deserts. 3 

The wantonness of the Roman tyranny appears from 
the complaints attributed to the provincials, and the rec- 

1 Friedlander quotes the song of the retiarius : " Non te peto, piscem. peto, 
quod me fugi' Galle ? " — Manners of the Romans. 

2 The Roman sentiment on the subject is illustrated by the exulting words 
of Tacitus on the destruction of the Bructeri on the Rhine. " The gods 
grudged not even to let us see the spectacle ; over 60,000 men fell on the field, 
not under the Roman sword and spear, but in a still more stately fashion, dying 
to make a show before our delighted eyes." — Tacitus, Germ., c. 33. 

3 Tacitus, Agric, 15 ; Hist., i, 59. With the exception of this author 
(55-135 A. D.) and Ptolemy, whose great work was published about 120 A. D., 
the Notitia Imperii, or Official Calendar of the Empire, which was compiled 
about the end of the fourth century, is almost the only authority for the stations 
of the British regiments. It mentions some quartered in Gaul, Spain, Illyria, 
Egypt, and Armenia, and others enrolled among the home forces or palatine 
guards. Though it was against the policy of the State to allow the natives of 
any province to serve at home, inscriptions have been found at places in York- 
shire and Cumberland which indicate the presence of a British contingent. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



39 



ord of those evil doings which led to Boadicea's revolt. 
The legal dues, indeed, were severe, though, perhaps, not 
intolerable. The conscription was necessary for repairing 
the drain upon the other provinces, though the Britons 
complained that their sons were torn away "as if they 
might die for every country but their own." The trib- 
ute, the tithe of grain, and the obligation of feeding the 
court and the army, were all endurable when the burden 
was equally distributed ; but such a thing was never 
known to happen till Agricola came to the government 
and restored her good name to Peace. Before this time 
the Britons were treated as slaves and prisoners of war : 
the colonists thrust them from their lands ; the tithe- 
farmers combined to buy up the stock of grain, which the 
chieftains were forced to purchase back at a ruinous price, 
to fulfil their duty to the government. The illicit con- 
trivances for gain were more intolerable than the tribute 
itself. The people groaned under a double tyranny ; each 
state had formerly been governed by a single king ; " but 
now," they said, " we are under the legate and the pro- 
curator ; the one preys on our blood and the other on our 
lands ; the officers of the one and the slaves of the other 
combine extortion and insult ; nothing is safe from their 
avarice and nothing from their lust." 

It was under these circumstances that the Icenian 
mutiny took place, which ended so disastrously for the 
Britons. " Prasutagus, famous for his great treasures, 
had made Caesar and his daughters joint heirs, thinking 
by this token of respect to save his kingdom and family 
from insult — which happened quite otherwise ; for his 
kingdom was made a prey by the captains, and his house 
pillaged by the slaves. And, as if the whole was now be- 
come lawful booty, the chiefs of the Iceni were deprived 
of their paternal estates, and those of the blood royal 
were treated as the meanest slaves." 1 The revolt began 
in A. D. 61, when Suetonius Pauilinus had been two years 
in command. The nations of Eastern and Central Britain 
moved in vast hordes to sweep the helpless province. 
The Roman soldiers were dispersed in forts and block- 
houses, and the natives were exhausting the refinements 
of cruelty on all who fell into their hands, as though en- 
deavoring, said the angry Romans, to avenge in advance 
the terrible punishments which awaited them. Pauilinus 

1 Tacitus, Ann., xiv, 31. 



40 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

was then at Mona, whence he was recalled by the news 
that the Ninth Legion was annihilated. Marching in all 
haste across the island, by the new military road, he 
reached London with what few troops he had been able 
to collect upon the route ; and, resolving to sacrifice this 
one town to the safety of the rest, he gave orders to 
march, receiving into his army such as were able to follow 
him. Those who by reason of weakness, sex, or age, 
staid behind, or were tempted by their affection for the 
place to remain, were destroyed by the enemy. London 
was sacked as soon as its defenders retreated, and, before 
the latter got far, they learned that Verulam was de- 
stroyed by another wing of the mass which was closing 
upon them. It was believed that over 70,000 people had 
been massacred in the three captured towns. 1 

The fate of the province was at stake, and Paullinus 
determined to risk a decisive battle as soon as he could 
gain an advantage of position. Finding that the main 
force of the enemy was encamped on a plain skirted by- 
steep and thickly-wooded hills, he forced his way through 
the forest and emerged at the mouth of a ravine, where 
he formed his line of battle. The Britons covered the 
plain with long lines of wagons, stretching as far as the 
eye could see, their infantry skillfully disposed, and their 
horsemen drawn up in troops and squadrons, " in such 
numbers as never were elsewhere seen." They seem to 
have delivered their assault in the old British fashion, 
charging along the enemy's lines with masses of mounted 
men, while the infantry pushed up behind, and drove 
back the Roman skirmishers under a shower of darts and 
stones. The legionaries are described as never moving 
until all their missiles had been discharged with more or 
less effect ; then suddenly wheeling into a wedge-shaped 
figure, they charged and. cut the enemy's line into two, 
the auxiliaries following and hewing down the enemy 
with their heavy sabers, and the cavalry riding down 
whatever force that still remained unbroken. The great- 

1 Tac, Ann., xiv, 33 (Camden). London, Verulam, and Camulodunum 
were all open towns, though, founded on the sites of Celtic fortresses. They 
were all fortified in later times, and their walls long remained among the most 
conspicuous of the monuments left by the Romans. The fortress of Verulam 
remained standing until its materials and " fine masonrie work, some porphy- 
rie, some alabaster, were required for building St. Alban's Abbey." — Leland's 
Itin. v, introd., xviii. The walls, the massive tower, and in fact the whole of 
the church were built out of the ruins of Verulam ; even the newels of the 
staircases are constructed with Roman tiles. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 



41 



est slaughter was at the wagons, where the crowd of 
fugitives was entangled, and the bodies of men, wom- 
en, and horses were piled together in indiscriminate 
heaps. 1 

This battle practically decided the fate of Britain. 
Large reinforcements were forwarded from the provinces 
on the Rhine ; and the mutinous and suspected tribes 
alike were ravaged with fire and sword. The punishment 
was so sharp and long-continued that Paullinus was at last 
accused of personal feeling. " His policy," it was said, 
" was arrogant ; and he showed the cruelty of one who 
was avenging a private wrong." He was quietly re- 
moved, and the province remained at peace until the 
accession of Vespasian. Even then we hear of no great 
combinations among the tribes ; the states of the Brigan- 
tians were divided in Cartismandua's quarrel, and the 
Silures were left to fight alone in their final contest with 
Frontinus. 2 

The province was finally consolidated by the valor 
and prudence of Agricola, who professed to like the peo- 
ple and to prefer the British wit to the labored smartness 
of the Gauls. He determined to root out the causes of 
war by reforming the abuses of the government, and by 
persuading the natives to leave their rude ways of living, 
to build temples, and courts, and fine houses, to speak 
Latin, and to wear the Roman dress. The hostile tribes 
were alarmed by sudden campaigns, and then bought over 
by the offer of a generous peace. His first year of office 
was taken up by the expedition against the Ordovices 
and the conquest of the Isle of Mona. In his second cam- 
paign he was engaged with the tribes of the western coast ; 
and his final victory over the Caledonians was in A. D. 
84. We are told that he always selected the place of en- 
campment himself, and marched with his soldiers in their 
explorations of the estuaries and forests. Many of the 
nations in those parts submitted to give hostages, and to 
allow permanent forts to be erected within their territo- 
ries ; and " it was observed by the best masters of war 
that no captain ever chose places to better advantage, for 
no castle of his raising was ever taken by force, or sur- 

1 " The victory," says Tacitus, " was very noble, and the glory of it not 
inferior to those of ancient times ; for by the report of some there were slain 
little less than fourscore thousand Britons, whereas the Romans lost but about 
four hundred killed, and had not many more wounded." — Anna/., xiv, 37. 

2 Tacitus, Agric, 17. 

5 



42 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

rendered upon terms, or quitted as incapable of de- 
fence." l 

Thirty-five years after Agricola's return to Rome, the 
Emperor Hadrian was summoned to the defence of the 
frontier. 2 The Roman conquest and dominion now ex- 
tended over all the southern part of the island to the foot 
of the northern hills, which in former days had served as 
a rampart to the aborigines against the invasions of the 
Cambrians, and now protected them against the enter- 
prises of the Romans. The territory which the Roman 
invasion had secured was limited by very nearly the same 
boundary which the Gaulish invasions had reached in 
Caesar's time, and the Gaelic race remained free, while 
the foreign yoke oppressed the more ancient conquerors. 
They more than once compelled the Imperial Eagles to 
retreat, and their ancient aversion to the Gaulish inhabit- 
ants of South Britain was greatly increased during the 
wars they had to wage with the Roman governors, in 
whose armies some of the latter were known to serve as 
auxiliaries. The plunder of the Roman colonies and mu- 
nicipal towns, adorned with sumptuous palaces and tem- 
ples, further excited, by new temptations, the national 
spirit of aggression. The men of Alben or Caledonia 3 
passed the Clyde every spring in their osier boats cov- 
ered with hides, and their irruptions becoming more and 
more frequent, gave a fearful renown to the people of 
Albany under the name of Scots and Picts? which alone 
we find employed by the Latin authors, who seem to have 
been ignorant of the name of Gaels. 

The former of these two names appertained to the in- 
habitants of the island of Erin, which the Romans called 

1 Tacitus, Agric, 22. Before Agricola was appointed to the chief com- 
mand, he had served in Britain under Vettius Bolanus, and Cerealis, who sub- 
dued the revolted Brigantians in A. D. 69. 

2 Hadrian arrived in Britain in A. D. 120. 

3 Caledonia, in Gaelic Calyddon, " the land of forests." 

4 Venit et extremis legio prsetenta Britannis 
Quae Scoto dat frena truci, ferroque notatas 
Perlegit exangues, Picto moriente figuras. 

Claudianus, De Bello Getico, v, 416, et sea. 
In the legendary history of Ireland the Picts are represented by the Tuatha Dh 
Danann, and by the Cruitknigh, a name which was the Irish equivalent of the 
Latin Picti, supposed to have had reference to the practice of some of the Brit- 
ish tribes to paint themselves with woad. Whether or not this practice pre- 
vailed among the Picts is by no means certain. At any rate, no nation would 
have called themselves by such a name. Far more probable it is that the Picts 
of Scotland, as well as the Pic tones of Gaul, are " the fighters," the name being 
traceable to the Gaelic peicta and the Welsh peith, meaning " a fighting man." 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 43 

indifferently Hibernia or Scotia. The close relationship 
between the Celtic Highlanders and the men of Hibernia, 
with the frequent emigrations from the one country to 
the other, had produced this community of name. In 
northern Britain, however, the term applied specially to 
the inhabitants of the coast and of the great archipelago 
of the northwest ; and that of Picts to the eastern popu- 
lation on the shores of the German Ocean. The respect- 
ive territories of these peoples were separated by the 
Grampian Hills, at the foot of which Gallawy, the lead- 
ing chieftain of the northern forests, had valiantly com- 
bated the Imperial legions. The manner of life of the 
Scots wholly differed from that of the Picts ; the former, 
dwellers on the mountains, were hunters or wandering 
shepherds ; the latter, enjoying a more level surface, and 
being more permanently established, occupied themselves 
in agriculture, and constructed the solid abodes, the ruins 
of which still bear their name. When these two peoples 
were not actually leagued together for an irruption of the 
south, even a friendly understanding ceased at times to 
exist between them ; but on every occasion that presented 
itself of assailing the common enemy, the two chiefs be- 
came brothers, and set up their standards side by side. 
The Southern Britons and the Roman colonists, in their 
fear and their hate, made no distinction between the Scots 
and Picts. 1 

It was especially for the defence of the northern fron- 
tier against these nations that Hadrian had been sum- 
moned to Britain. The beginning of his reign was 
troubled by border-wars, and more than once the Cale- 
donians were threatening the heart of the province. The 
Ninth Legion, in Paullinus's time, had suffered so severe- 
ly that it was either broken up altogether or was united 
with the Sixth, 2 which had come over with Hadrian, and 

1 Gildas, De excidio Britannia, passim. 

2 Each legion numbered at first about 7,000 regulars, with at least as many 
auxiliaries, some trained like the heavy-armed legionaries, and others fighting 
according to their own methods, and even in some cases under the command of 
their native chiefs. — Tac, Ann., iv, 5. Of the Batavi, for instance, the historian 
says : " Mox aucta per Britanniam gloria, transmissis illuc cohortibus quas vetere 
instituto nobilissimi popularium regebant." — Hist, iv, 12. The numbers of the 
legionaries were diminished under the later emperors, when an almost absolute 
reliance was placed on the German mercenaries. Large forces of barbarians 
were from time to time sent over to assist the legions in Britain. Thus when 
Marcus Aurelius had defeated the Moravian tribes, he compelled them to send 
a great part of their army to serve on the Caledonian frontier ; and in the same 
reign a contingent of 5,000 Sarmatians was drafted from the Lower Danube to 



44 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



was established as a permanent garrison at Eburacum, the 
site of the modern city of York. This city seems to have 
grown out of a Roman camp, and to have taken the place 
of Isurium, the capital of the Brigantian district/ In 
these days the Roman soldiers were pioneers and colonists. 
A Roman camp was " a city in arms," and most of the Brit- 
ish towns grew out of the stationary quarters of the sol- 
diery. The ramparts and pathways developed into walls 
and streets, the square of the tribunal into the market- 
place, and every gateway was the beginning of a suburb, 
while straggling rows of shops, temples, gardens, and 
cemeteries, were sheltered from all danger by the pres- 
ence of a permanent garrison. In the center of the town 
stood a group of public buildings, containing the court- 
house, baths, and barracks ; and in course of time every 
important place had its theatre and circus for races and 
shows. Such towns, which from the nature of their ori- 
gin were always situated in strong strategic positions, 
were invariably surrounded with lofty walls, protected 
by turrets set apart at the distance of bowshot, and built 
of such solid strength as to resist the shock of the batter- 
ing-ram. This kind of wall, in the construction of which 
the Romans displayed such remarkable skill, 2 was the 
prototype of the colossal structure known as the " Picts' 
Wall," which Hadrian built from sea to sea, as a protec- 
tion against the attacks of the northern tribes, and of 
which the ruins may still be seen extending for miles be- 
tween Tynemouth and the estuary of the Solway. 3 

This wall, a masterpiece of military engineering, run- 

the stations between Chester and Carlisle ; and there are records relating to 
German soldiers from districts now included in Luxemburg, which show that in 
some cases whole tribes at once were attached to one or other of the auxiliary 
regiments in Britain. 

1 Isurium is called " Isu-Brigantum " in the Antonine Itinerary, as if it had 
long retained the position of the native capital. An inscription of A. D. 108 
shows that some Roman buildings were erected at York under Trajan, whose 
fondness for such mural records earned him the name of " Parietaria," or " Wall- 
flower.— Kenrich., Arch. Essays, 184. 

2 The ruins of Roman walls generally show them to consist of a certain 
number of courses of hewn stone or ashlaring, separated at intervals by double- 
bonding courses of Roman tile, joined by a superior cement, the interior of the 
wall being filled up with rubble. 

3 The merit of the work has been sometimes claimed for Severus, for the 
generals who in the fifth century brought temporary help to Britain, and even 
for the native princes whom their masters had abandoned to the enemy. But 
after a long debate the opinion has now prevailed that the whole system of de- 
fence bears the impress of a single mind, and that the wall and its parallel 
earthworks, its camps, roads, and stations were all designed and constructed by 
Hadrian alone. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 45 

ning along- the cliffs and clinging to their edges, was 
about twenty feet high and over eight feet thick, guard- 
ed, where the ground permitted, by a fosse on its north- 
ern side. In this were set 320 watch-towers, about a 
quarter of a mile apart, with a " mile-castle " between 
every fourth and fifth tower, in which the soldiers were 
always in readiness. Twenty-three permanent stations 
are shown by the Imperial Calendars to have lain along 
the line of the wall, with garrisons drawn from as many 
different countries, so that no two adjoining camps should 
be held by soldiers from the same part of the world. 
The list shows a motley array of Germans and Gauls, of 
Spaniards, Moors, and Thracians, spearmen from Fries- 
land and cavalry from Illyria, Basques of the Pyrenees 
and Sarmatians from the lowlands of the Danube; and 
the correctness of the official record is conclusively shown 
by the discovery of altars and mortuary inscriptions set 
up in not a few of the stations by men of the same foreign 
battalions, as appear by the " Notitia " to have been quar- 
tered there. These camps or forts lay, for the most part, 
between the wall and the triple earthworks, a few being 
set at some distance to the north and south, to form a line 
of supports and to guard the military roads which led 
from the inland fortresses to the camps on the Forth and 
Clyde. These stations were crowded with streets and 
buildings, and adorned with baths and temples, and towns 
of considerable size grew up, in time, under the protec- 
tion of the garrisons. There are ruins so vast and com- 
plete still scattered on these desolate hills that they have 
been styled, without too much exaggeration, the " Pom- 
peii " of Britain. 1 " It is hardly credible," said an old 
traveler, what a number of august remains of the Roman 
grandeur is to be seen here to this day : in every place 
where one casts his eye there is some curious antiquity to 
be seen, either the marks of streets and temples in ruins, 
or inscriptions, broken pillars, statues, and other pieces of 
sculpture, all scattered on the ground." 2 

1 " The remains of a wall are all along so very visible that one may follow 
the track ; and in the wastes I myself have seen pieces of it for a long way 
together standing entire, except the battlements only, which are thrown down." 
— Camden, Brit. (Gibson), 1048, 1050. Some of the mile-castles were standing 
in 1708 ; " one observes where the ridge has been, and also the trench all before 
it on the north, as also some of their little towers or mile-castles on the south 
side." — Ibid., 1051. A description, of the year 1572, gives the measure of the 
wall at that time, " the bredth iii yardis, the hyght remainith in sum places 
yet vii yardis." — See Bruce, Roman Wall, 53. * Gordon, Itin. Septent., 76. 



46 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

After the peaceful age of the Antonines, the debatable 
land about the walls became the scene of a perpetual war- 
fare, which raged or smoldered, as the barbarians burst 
across the line or were chased into the recesses of their 
mountains. The expedition of Severus made it certain 
that the Highland tribes could never be finally subdued. 
The old emperor was holding his court at Rome, when 
letters were received from York, announcing that the 
army had been driven back upon the fortresses, and that 
the barbarians were ravaging the land. Severus seems 
to have been weary of the splendor and corruption by 
which his despotism was maintained ; and, determined to 
lead the campaign himself, he transferred his court to 
York, and massed the army upon the frontier. The res- 
toration of the province was followed by a further ad- 
vance, which ended in a costly failure. The plan of inva- 
sion was unsuited to the nature of the country. The 
estuaries were bridged, and roads were driven through 
the fens, but still, as the troops pushed their way, the 
enemy retreated to more distant places of refuge, and, 
before a precarious peace could be arranged, it was esti- 
mated that 50,000 men had perished in the never-ending 
ambuscades and skirmishes, or had died of cold and dis- 
ease. Before two years had passed the war broke out 
again, and Severus vainly threatened to extirpate every 
tribe in the hills. He died, and his death is said to have 
been hastened by omens of approaching ruin. After his 
death he was deified ; and his sons Caracalla and Geta 
admitted the Caledonians to easy terms of peace. The 
province remained secure till Britain obtained a short- 
lived independence, " by carelessness or by some stroke 
of Fate," according to the Roman story, but in truth by 
the courage and wisdom of an obscure Batavian adven- 
turer. A new danger had arisen from the pirate fleets of 
the Franks, who infested the British seas, and had even 
found their way to the coasts of Spain and Africa. Ca- 
rausius the Menapian, the commander of the Imperial 
navy, was suspected of encouraging the pirates in order 
to have a share in their booty, and his only chance 
of life was a successful rebellion in Britain. Here he 
proclaimed himself emperor in A. D. 288, and ruled the 
island peacefully until, in the seventh year of his reign, he 
was murdered by his minister Allectus. The scanty gar- 
rison was reinforced by volunteers from Gaul and a large 
force of Franks, who served as legionaries in the new 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



47 



army, and as sailors on the ships of war. The usurpation 
was condoned, though the insult could never be forgiven ; 
and the Menapian was accepted as a partner in the em- 
pire by Diocletian and Maximian, whose origin was as 
humble as his own, though they assumed to rule the 
world by the wisdom of Jupiter and in the strength of 
Hercules. 

The Franks were fast arriving at complete dominion 
in Britain, when Constantius broke their power by a de- 
cisive battle, in which Allectus himself was killed. The 
Roman fleet had successfully blockaded Boulogne, the 
outpost and stronghold of the insular power, and the 
friends of Allectus were weakened by an attack on their 
settlements near the Rhine. An army of invasion was 
landed under cover of a fog at a point west of the Isle of 
Wight, where the British galleys were stationed. It is 
difficult to extract the truth from the rhapsodies of the 
courtly chronicler ; but we may believe that Allectus ad- 
vanced too rashly, and with too implicit a confidence in 
his German followers. It was said that hardly a Roman 
fell, while all the hillsides were covered with the bodies 
of the Franks, who might be recognized by their tight 
clothes and broad belts, and by their fashion of shaving 
the face, and of wearing their reddened hair in a mass 
pushed forward on the forehead. 1 The imperial forces at 
once pushed on to London, where a remnant of the Franks 
was defeated. li The city," in the words of its historian, 
" seemeth not to have been walled in A. D. 296, because, 
when Allectus the Tyrant was slaine in the field, the 
Franks easily entered London, and had sacked the same, 
had not God of his great favour at the very instant 
brought along the River of Thames certain bands of 
Romane souldiers, who slew those Franks in every street 
of the City." 2 

In Diocletian's new scheme of government the world 
was to be governed by two emperors, administering the 

1 Eumenius, Paneg. Constant., 15, 16, 17. Compare the description of the 
Franks in the letters and poems of Sidonius Apollinaris. " Ipse medius inces- 
sit, flammeus cocco, rutilus auro, lacteus serico : turn cultui tanto coma rubore 
cute concolor." — Epist., iv, 7. 

" Rutili quibus arce cerebri 
Ad frontem coma tracta jacet, nudataque cervix 
Setarum per damna nitet, turn lumine glauco 
Albet aquosa acies, ac vultibus undique rasis 

Pro barba tenues perarantur pectine cristae." — Carm. y vii, 238, 242. 
8 Stow's Survey of London (1619), 6. 



48 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

Eastern and the Italian provinces, while the frontiers were 
guarded by two associated " Caesars," the one governing 
on the Danube, and the other in the united regions of 
Spain, Gaul, and Britain. The dominion of the West was 
assigned to Constantius, first as "Caesar" and then as 
" Augustus," after the retirement of Diocletian. Con- 
stantius resided at York, and is said to have been success- 
ful in war with the Picts and Scots ; but he is chiefly re- 
membered as father of Constantine the Great, and as hus- 
band of that pious Helena, whose legend takes so many 
shapes in the fabulous chronicles of Wales. Constantius 
died in the year A. D. 306, soon after the Caledonian war, 
and Constantine the Great was at once chosen by the sol- 
diers to succeed him in the sovereignty of the West, 
though the dignity was legally confirmed only in the fol- 
lowing year. It is believed that his election was chiefly 
due to the friendly zeal of a German king, who had 
brought his army to Britain to assist in the northern cam- 
paign. 1 

The scheme of government which Diocletian had de- 
signed was in some respects amended by Constantine. 
Britain formed part of a vast proconsulate, extending 
from Mount Atlas to the Caledonian deserts, and gov- 
erned by the Gallic Prefect, through a vicar or deputy at 
York. The island was divided into five new provinces, 
without regard to the ancient boundaries. 2 To each was 
assigned a governor experienced in law, who dealt with 
taxation and finance. The army was under the general 
jurisdiction of the two masters of the cavalry and infantry, 
who directed the forces of the Empire of the West. But 
so far as Britain was concerned, it was under the orders 
of the "Count of Britain," assisted by two important, 
though subordinate officers. The " Count of Britain " 

1 This chieftain was called " Crocus," a name which probably meant " the 
Crow " ; it may be compared to that of " Rolf Krake." " Cunctis qui aderant 
annitentibus sed prascipue Croco Alamannorum rege, auxilii gratia Constantium 
comitato, imperium capit." — Victor, Jun., c. 41. " This," says Gibbon, " is per- 
haps the first instance of a barbarian king who assisted the Roman arms with 
an independent body of his own subjects. The practice grew familiar, and at 
last became fatal." Valentinian in the same way engaged the services of " King 
Fraomar." — Ammian. Marcell., xxix, 4. 

2 The names of the provinces appear in the Notitia. They were distin- 
guished as Britannia Prima and Secunda ; Flavia Ccesariensis ; Maxima Casa- 
riensis ; and Valentia. The last was between the walls of Hadrian and Anto- 
ninus ; the situation of the rest is unknown, though it is believed that Britannia 
Prima was the southeastern province, and Maxima the district between the 
Wash and Hadrian's wall. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 



49 



commanded in the north, while the " Count of the Saxon 
Shore " held the government of the " maritime tract," and 
provided for the defence of the fortresses which lined the 
southeastern coast. 1 

The completion of this system of defense, and the es- 
tablishment of the Diocletian constitution, cost the Brit- 
ish provinces as much in freedom and importance as they 
seemed to gain in security. The country suffered in many 
different ways. It had come to be a mere department 
under the Court of Treves — one of several Atlantic re- 
gions which were regarded as having the same political 
interests and a common stock of resources. The de- 
fences of Britain were sacrificed to some sudden call for 
soldiers in Spain and on the Alpine passes, and the 
shrunken legions left behind could barely man the for- 
tresses upon the frontier. The provinces which might 
have stood safely by their own resources were becoming 
involved in a general bankruptcy. The troops were ill- 
paid and. were plundered by their commanders, the labor- 
ers had sunk into serfdom, and the property of the rich 
was so heavily charged by the State that the owners 
would have gladly escaped by resigning their apparent 
wealth. The burdens of taxation were constantly multi- 
plied by the complexity of the system of government, and 
the increase of departments and offices. The visit of the 
Imperial tax-gatherers was compared to the horrors of a 
successful assault in war. A writer of that time describes 
the scene in a provincial town, where every head of cattle 
in the neighborhood had been numbered and marked for 
a tax. All the population of the district was assembled, 
and the place was crowded with the land-owners, bring- 
ing in their laborers and slaves. " One heard nothing but 
the sound of flogging and all kinds of torture ; the son 
was forced to inform against his father ; the wife against 
her husband ; failing everything else, the men were com- 
pelled to give evidence against themselves, and were taxed 
according to the confessions which they made to escape 
from torments." 2 

These evils pressed upon the world from the age of 
Constantine until the empire was finally dismembered and 
the general ruin completed, of which they were a princi- 

1 Litus Saxonum per Britannias. There was another " Saxon Shore " on 
the opposite coast, with its headquarters at Boulogne. 

1 Lactantius, De Mort. Persecute 23. — Compare this statement with the 
description of the Roman regime in Gaul about the same period, page 473. 



50 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

pal cause. The history of Britain during this period, so 
far as it can properly be said to have had a history at all, 
is concerned with the establishment of the Christian 
Church, by which the general misery was alleviated ; 
with several attempts at separating the three Atlantic 
countries from the crumbling Empire of the West ; and 
finally with the growth of the barbarian kingdoms, by 
which all those countries were overwhelmed in turn. 
Christianity was not recognized as the religion of the 
State until the proclamation in the year A. D. 324, by 
which Constantine exhorted his subjects to follow their 
emperor's example in abandoning the errors of paganism ; 
but it had been tolerated, with few intermissions, from 
the time when Hadrian had found a kindly excuse for 
the Christians by classing them with the worshipers of 
his favorite Serapis. 1 The persecution of Diocletian had 
hardly extended to Britain, where Caesar Constantius had 
protected the Christians, though he could not prevent the 
destruction of their sacred buildings. But Druidism was 
doomed, and in the main absorbed by the old Latin relig- 
ion, which itself had long ceased to satisfy the minds of 
educated men, though its visible emblems were respected 
until the destruction of the temples, under Theodosius, at 
the end of the fourth century. By that time the Roman 
population of Britain, soldiers and colonists, included for- 
eigners from almost all parts of the then known world, 
and the temples, altars, and images were used indifferent- 
ly by worshipers of all kinds, and under the various 
creeds which they had brought with them from their na- 
tive countries. 2 Many of the outward forms, and even 
some of the doctrines of Christianity, were imitated by 
the pantheistic religions which spread from Egypt and 
the East, and overlaid the old rites of Isis and Osiris, 3 or 

1 Illi qui Serapim colunt Christiani sunt ; et devoti sunt Serapi qui se 
Christi episcopos dicunt. — Vopiscus, Ad Saturnin., c. 8. For the nature of the 
worship of Serapis, see Tac., Hist., iv, 83 ; and Apuleius, Metamorph., xi, 27, 
28. He was regarded as the " Deus Pantheus," the spirit of the universe mani- 
fested in countless forms, and was identified, as the convenience of worshipers 
required, with several of the older gods. The Egyptian Isis, the goddess of 
nature, was usually worshiped with Serapis in the same temple. 

2 For a list of Roman temples, of which the remains have been found in 
England, see Hubner, Corp. Lat. Inscr., vii, 332. Many of the epithets used on 
British inscriptions are of unknown origin, but they appear, in general, to refer 
to the native country of the worshiper. 

3 The religion of Isis, though deformed by archaic " mysteries," was gradu- 
ally developed into an elevated form of nature-worship. The goddess was at 
one time regarded as the spirit of the ether through which the sun proceeds, 
and so by a natural transition she became the companion of Osiris, the hidden 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 51 

of Mithras, " the unconquered lord of ages," who was re- 
vered as the illuminator of all darkness, and as the media- 
tor and the friend of man. We learn from sculptured 
tablets, and from inscriptions and symbols on tombs, that 
Mithraism x at one time prevailed extensively in Britain ; 
and its influence was doubtless strengthened by the arti- 
fice of its professors in imitating the Christian sacraments 
and festivals, but its authority was destroyed, or confined 
to the country districts, where the pagan rites were 
finally forbidden by law. 2 After the year 386 we find 
records of an established Christian Church in Britain, 
"holding the Catholic faith and keeping up an inter- 
course with Rome and Palestine." 3 

As early even as the middle of the fourth century 
the British provinces were persistently attacked by sea 
and land. The Picts and Scots, and the warlike nations 
of the Attacotti, from whom the empire was accustomed 
to recruit its choicest soldiers, 4 the fleets of Irish pirates 

and nocturnal sun, and reigned like Proserpina, in the world of the dead. 
After the second century she united in herself the attributes of all the god- 
desses, and became the representative of Nature. See the hymns preserved by 
Apuleius : " Te superi colunt, observant inferi, tu rotas orbem, luminas solem, 
regis mundum, calcas Tartarum : tibi respondent sidera, redeunt tempora, gau- 
dent numina, serviunt elementa : tuo nutu spirant flamina, nutriunt nubila, 
germinant semina, crescunt gramina," etc. — Apul., Metamorph., xi, 5, 30. As 
to the worship of Osiris, " summorum maximus et maximorum regnator," see 
the same work, xi, 30, and the Dialogue of Hermes Trismegistus, by the same 
author. — Apul., Asclep., 41. 

1 Mithraism, from Mithra, " the sun," in the ancient mythology of the 
Parsees, or fire-worshipers. Mithraism came from the Persians to the Egyp- 
tians, and from them to the Greeks. It was introduced into Italy in the year 
of Rome 637, and was then at its height during the reign of Commodus. After 
being suppressed in Italy in A. D, 391, it made its way into Gaul, and from there 
into Britain, where it has left many traces of its existence, mixed up with those 
of early Christianity. 

8 In an account of the spread of Mithraism in Britain and the inscriptions 
to Sol Socius, Sol Inviclus Mithras, and the like, and of the Mithraic caves and 
sculptures found near Hadrian's wall, see Welbeloved, Eburacum, 79, 81. 
St. Jerome describes the destruction of a cave of Mithras at Rome in the year 
378, with the symbols used in initiation — Opera, i, 15. 

3 Haddan, Councils, i, 10. " The statements respecting British Christians 
at Rome or in Britain, and respecting apostles or apostolic men preaching in 
Britain in the first century, rest upon guess, mistake, or fable." — Ibid., i, 22. 
The evidence for British Christianity in the second century, including the Let- 
ter of Pope Eleutherius and the well-known story of King Lucius, is also pro- 
nounced to be unhistorical. — Ibid., p. 25. Mello, a British Christian, was Bishop 
of Rouen between the years 256 and 314, and in the latter year bishops from 
York, London, and Caerleon were present at the Council of Aries. In the year 
325 the British Church assented to the conclusions of the Council of Nicsea. — 
Ibid., p. 7. 

4 The Notitia Imperii mentions several regiments of Attacotti serving 
for the most part in Gaul and Spain. Two of their regiments were enrolled 



52 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

in the north, the Franks and Saxons on the southern 
shores, combined forces, whenever a chance presented 
itself, to burn and devastate the country, to cut off an out- 
lying garrison, to carry off women and children like cattle 
captured in a foray, 1 and to offer the bodies of Roman 
citizens as sacrifices to their blood-thirsty gods. The Sax- 
ons especially were dreaded for their sudden and well- 
calculated assaults. They swept the coast like creatures 
of the storm, choosing the worst weather and the most 
dangerous snores as inviting them to the easiest attack. 
Their ships, when dispersed by the Roman galleys, were 
re-assembled at some point left undefended, and they be- 
gan to plunder again ; and they were taught by their 
fierce superstition to secure a safe return by immolating 
every tenth captive in honor of the gods of the sea. 2 

In the year 368 the Court at Treves was startled by 
the news that the Duke of Britain had perished in a fron- 
tier ambuscade, and that the Count Nectaridus had been 
defeated and slain in a battle on the Saxon shore. The 
Picts, the Attacotti and the Scots had broken through the 
walls and were devastating the northern provinces ; the 
coasts nearest to Gaul were attacked by the Franks, and 
their neighbors the Saxons, who were ravaging the south 
with fire and sword. 3 Theodosius, the best general of the 
empire, was sent across the channel with two picked 
legions and a great force of German auxiliaries. On ap- 
proaching London, the old town, then known as "the 
Augustan City," he divided his army to attack the scat- 
tered troops of marauders, who were covering the coun- 

among the " Honorians," the most distinguished troops in the Imperial armies. 
Though their country is not certainly known, it seems probable that they in- 
habited the wilder parts of Galloway. Orosius, speaking of the time of Stilicho, 
about A. D. 400, calls them " barbari qui quondam in fcedus recepti atque in 
militiam adlecti Honoriaci vocantur." — Oros., vii, 40. 

1 In the work of destruction no rank, age, or sex was spared. Children 
were butchered before the faces of their parents, husbands in sight of their 
wives, and wives in sight of their husbands. Noble women and girls were 
carried away with other plunder, bound by ropes and thongs, and goaded along 
with the points of spears and lances. The barbarous Picts dragged away their 
captives without mercy into their own country, either retaining them as slaves 
or selling them like cattle to the other savages. — Ric. Hagustald, Hexam 
Chron., 318. 

2 Mos est remeaturis decimum quemque captorum per gequales et cruciarias 
pcenas, plus ob hoc tristi quam superstitioso ritu, necare. — Sidon. Apollin., 
viii, 3. 

3 Gallicanos vero tractus Franci et Saxones iisdem confines, quo quisque 
erumpere potuit terra vel mari, praedis acerbis incendiisque et captivorum fune- 
ribus hominum violabant. — Ammian. Marcell., xxvii, 8. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



53 



try and driving off their captives and stolen cattle to the 
coast. The spoil was successfully recovered, and the 
general entered London in triumph. There he awaited 
reinforcements, finding, by the reports of spies and de- 
serters, that he had before him the forces of a crowd of 
savage nations, and being anxious to gain time for recall- 
ing the soldiers who had deserted to the enemy or had 
dispersed in search of food. At last, by threats and per- 
suasions, by stratagems and unforseen attacks, he not only 
recovered the lost army and dispersed the confused mass- 
es of the enemy, but even succeeded in regaining all the 
frontier districts, and in restoring the whole machinery of 
government. 1 

A few years afterward occurred the revolt of Maxi- 
mus, a Spaniard who had served under Theodosius, and 
had afterward gained the affection of the turbulent sol- 
diery in Britain. The Emperor Gratian had exhibited an 
undue liking for the Alani, his barbarian allies, and it 
was feared, or alleged, that there was danger of their 
occupying the western provinces. Maximus, who proba- 
bly had started the rumor himself, seized the opportunity, 
and, having himself proclaimed emperor in Britain, in 
A. D. 383, he proceeded to justify the soldiers' choice by a 
splendid and successful campaign against the Picts and 
Scots. In the course of the next year he raised a large 
army of Britons and Gauls to supplement his regular 
forces, and, passing over to the mouth of the Rhine, he 
succeeded in establishing himself at Treves, and was 
eventually acknowledged as Emperor of the West. The 
career of Maximus seems to have deeply impressed the 
Britons, whose poets were never tired of telling how he 
married a British lady, and how, when he was slain, " at 
the foaming waters of the Save, his soldiers settled in 
Gaul, and founded a Lesser Brittany across the sea." 
The Britons of a later age found consolation even in 
thinking that the defeat of Maximus, and the loss of the 
army which he had led from their shores, were the proxi- 
mate causes of the English conquest. 2 It is probable 
enough that the drain of the continental war was a cause 
of weakness to the province, and an inducement to the 

1 Zosimus, iv, 35. 

2 Hi sunt Britones Armorici et nunquam reversi sunt ad proprium solum 
usque in hodiernum diem. Propter hoc Britannia occupata est ab extraneis 
gentibus, et cives ejus expulsi sunt, usque dum Dominus auxilium dederit illis. 
— Nennius, Hist. Brit., 23 ; Gildas, Hist., 14. 



54 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

barbarians to renew their attempts at conquest. Certain 
it is, that at least on two occasions, fixed with reasonable 
accuracy as the years 396 and 400, the coasts were again 
attacked by the Saxons, and that the country near Hadri- 
an's Wall was occupied and ravaged by the Scots and Picts 
until their power was broken by the sword of Stilicho. 1 

The independence of Britain was a consequence of 
the invasion of Northern Gaul by the Vandals. Commu- 
nication with the body of the empire was cut off by a 
horde of these rude warriors, associated with Suevi from 
the German forests and Alani from the shores of the 
Euxine. The army determined to choose their own lead- 
er, and in the year 407 they raised a private soldier named 
Constantine to the throne of the western empire. His 
success in recovering Gaul and Spain compelled the feeble 
Court of Ravenna to confirm the usurper's title ; but a 
period of anarchy followed which brought new dangers 
upon Britain, and caused its final separation from the 
Roman power. Gerontius, at first the friend and after- 
ward the destroyer of Constantine, recalled the barbarian 
hosts which had retreated beyond the Rhine, and invited 
them to cross the channel and to join in attacking the de- 
fenceless government of Britain. 3 The " Cities of Brit- 
ain," assuming in the stress of danger the powers of inde- 
pendent communities, succeeded in raising an army and 
repelling the German invasion. Then, having earned 
safety for themselves, they refused to return to their 
old subjection, if any obedience could indeed be claimed 
by the defeated usurper, or by an emperor reigning in 
exile. The Roman officials were ejected, and native forms 
of government established. Honorius was content to 
cede what he was unable to defend, and to confirm meas- 
ures which he was impotent to repeal. The final dis- 
missal of the province took place in A. D. 410, when the 
emperor sent letters to the cities, relieving them from any 
further allegiance, and bidding them provide in future for 
their own defence. 

Thus ended Roman rule in Britain, after four cen- 
turies of tyranny and oppression, leaving the country 
utterly ruined and in the most helpless condition. 

When the island was proclaimed part of the Roman 
Empire, the diffusion of the Latin language among the na- 

1 Claudian, Tert. Cons. Hon., 55, cf. Prim. Cons. Stilichon., ii, 250. 

2 Zosimus, vi, 5, 6, 10. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 55 

tive population was there, as everywhere else, one of the 
first means employed by the conquerors to rivet their 
dominion. Agricola, having spent the first year of his 
administration in establishing order and tranquillity, did 
not allow another winter to pass without beginning the 
work of training up the national mind to a Roman charac- 
ter. Tacitus informs us that he took measures for having 
the sons of the chiefs educated in the liberal arts, exciting 
them to exertion, as we have seen, by professing to pre- 
fer the natural genius of the Britons to the studied ac- 
quirements of the Gauls ; 1 the effect of which was that 
those who lately had disdained to use the Roman tongue 
now became ambitious to know it well. In later times, 
no doubt, schools were established and maintained in all 
the principal towns of Roman Britain, as they were 
throughout the empire, though not on such an extensive 
scale as in Gaul, where, during the same period, many 
schools of the highest character were flourishing in all 
parts of the country. 2 In Britain, on the contrary, not 
only is there no mention made by contemporary authors 
of the existence of any such sctiools whatsoever, but it 
even appears that the older schools of Gaul were resorted 
to by the Britons who pursued the study of the law. Ju- 
venal, who lived at the end of the first and the beginning 
of the second century, speaks in one of his satires of " elo- 
quent Gaul instructing the pleaders of Britain." 3 It is 
noticeable, also, that while the names of many natives of 
Gaul appear favorably in connection with the last age of 
Roman literature, no British name of any literary reputa- 
tion is found mentioned anywhere during the same period, 
if we except one Sylvius Bonus, referred to rather slight- 
ingly by the poet Ausonius, who flourished in the fourth 
century ; but of his works, or even of their titles or sub- 
jects, we know nothing. Still, four hundred years of Ro- 
man occupation must have left their mark among the 
people. Workmen, contractors, tradespeople, and all 
those whose interest it was to draw custom, must have 
spoken both Latin and Celtic, and in official transactions 
the use of the former was of course imperative. We 
know, moreover, that Cunobelin, one of the British chiefs 

1 Jam vero principum filios liberalibus artibas erudire et ingenia Britanno- 
rum studiis Gallorum antiferre, ut, qui modo linguam Romanam abnuebant, 
eloquentiam concupiscerent. — Tacitus, Agric, ii. 

2 See page 462. 

3 Gallia causidicos docuit facunda Britannos. — Juvenal, Sat., xv, 3. 



56 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

who lived in the reigns of the emperors Tiberius and 
Caligula, erected different mints in the island, and coined 
money of gold, silver, and copper, inscribed with Roman 
characters. The British coins in general, when bearing 
inscriptions, are invariably found stamped with Roman 
capitals. Numerous monumental and other inscriptions 
likewise sufficiently attest the prevailing usage for such 
purposes of the old Roman characters ; and as many rude 
stones of the earlier centuries, thus inscribed and still 
found in Wales, are in a Latin base enough to be attrib- 
uted to illiterate stone-masons, we may infer that, if the 
speaking of Latin was not as universal in Britain as it 
was in Gaul during the same period, a certain knowledge 
of that language must have been diffused throughout the 
entire nation, as it certainly was among the educated in 
the larger cities. Many Latin words, moreover, though 
changed considerably by British orthography and mis- 
pronunciation, may yet be traced in the Cambrian dia- 
lect, as for instance : ather, from aer, air ; airm, from arma, 
arms ; fear, from vir, man ; capat, from caput, head ; earn, 
from caro, flesh ; bo, from bos, ox ; aicheal, from aquila, 
eagle — all words of popular use, and with the same mean- 
ing as in Latin, and which, therefore, since the Welsh 
were never distinguished for any high literary culture, 
may be referred more probably to the Roman occupa- 
tion of Britain than to any subsequent studies of its in- 
habitants. Still, inasmuch as but few Celtic words have 
found their way into the English vocabulary, it is doubt- 
ful whether any Latin word in modern English is trace- 
able to that remote period. This will appear more clear- 
ly from the following chapter, in which the Celtic influ- 
ence upon the English mind, language, and vocabulary, 
will be more especially considered. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



$7 



CHAPTER III. 

THE ENGLISH CONQUEST. 

A FEW years proved the vanity of the success which 
the Britons had gained over the Romans, and extin- 
guished forever their hopes or dreams of freedom. After 
the retreat of the legions they organized anew under their 
ancient chiefs of tribes, and created the office of Chief of 
Chiefs, exercising a central and royal authority, as their 
annals declare, and they made the office elective. This 
new institution, destined in all appearance to give to the 
people greater union and strength against foreign aggres- 
sion, became, on the contrary, a source of internal divis- 
ion, of weakness, and eventually of servile subjection. Of 
the two great populations who shared the southern part 
of the island, each pretended to have an .exclusive right 
to furnish candidates for the royal dignity ; but as the 
seat of this central monarchy was the old municipal town 
of London, it resulted that men of the Gaulish race at- 
tained more easily than others the supreme rank of Chief 
of Chiefs. The Cambrians, jealous of this advantage, as- 
serted that the royal authority lawfully belonged to their 
race, as being the most ancient, and having originally re- 
ceived the others hospitably on the British shores. Hence 
arose a serious dispute, which soon became a deadly one, 
and plunged all Britain into a civil war, by quarrels of 
precedence and rivalry. Under a succession of chiefs, 
styled national, but always disowned by a part of the na- 
tion, no army was raised, and nothing was done to guard 
the frontiers against the aggressions that threatened the 
country on all sides. 

In the midst of this disorder, the Picts and Scots again 
forced the passage of the walls, and new fleets from Ire- 
land were ravaging the Cambrian shores, while the entire 
eastern coast was infested by the German corsairs, whose 
raids became even more frequent and more daring. Many 
foreign tribes, settled in the country, and always hostile 
to either branch of the British population, fomented their 
6 



58 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

dissensions, and secretly sided with the enemy against 
the natives. Several British tribes made great efforts 
separately, and fought some successful battles against the 
German and Gaelic aggressors. On one occasion some 
British Christians obtained a signal victory under the lead 
of St. Germanus, who visited the island as a missionary in 
A. D. 429, in company of St. Lupus of Troyes. The two 
bishops had been sent to Verulam to promote the Chris- 
tian interests, and during the spring of the following year 
the missionaries continued their labors in the valley of 
the Dee. The country around was infested with ricts 
and Scots, and it was feared that they would storm the 
camps where the British forces were concentrated. The 
bishops of Gaul had been chosen for their political as well 
as for their religious capacities ; and Germanus, accus- 
tomed to war, was easily persuaded to help his converts 
against the heathen. Easter Sunday was spent in baptiz- 
ing a small army of converts ; then the orthodox soldiers 
were posted in an ambuscade, and the pagans fled panic- 
stricken at the triple " halleluia," which suddenly echoed 
among the hills. 1 Other British successes are recorded 
as due to the aid of Roman troops who, under the leader- 
ship of Ambrosius Aurelius, came over from Gaul at the 
solicitation of some of the tribes on the southern coast, 
who were still in frequent communication with the conti- 
nent. But the time soon arrived when the Romans them- 
selves, pressed on all sides by the invasions of the barba- 
rians, had to fall back upon Italy, leaving the Britons 
defenceless, and without hope for further assistance from 
any foreign source. 2 

At this time the dignity of Supreme Chief of Britain 
was in the hands of a man of the Gaulish race, named 
Guorteyrn, 8 who repeatedly assembled around him all the 
chiefs of the British tribes, for the purpose of taking con- 
certed measures for the defence of the country against 

1 Constantius, Vita Germani, 28 ; Sidonius Apoll., Epist., vi, 1 ; Bede, Hist. 
Eccles., i, 20. Pope Gregory alludes to the battle in his Commentary on Job, 
" Ecce ! lingua Britannise .... coepit alleluia sonare." 

2 Malmesbury's account of the defenceless state of Britain was probably not 
exaggerated. He says : Ita cum tyranni nullum in agris praster semibarbaros, 
nullum in urbibus prseter ventri deditos reliquissent, Britannia omni patrocinio 
iuvenilis vigoris viduata, omni exercitio artium exinanita, conterminarum gen- 
tium inhiationi diu obnoxia fuit. — Gest. Reg., lib. I, § 2. 

3 Gwrtevyrn, according to Cambrian orthography. The Anglo-Saxon his- 
torians write Wyrtgeorne and Wyrtgerne, which, from their manner of pronounc- 
ing the name, probably produced about the same sound. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 59 

the constantly increasing invasions ; but it seems that very 
little harmony prevailed in these councils, for the men of 
the west scarcely ever approved what the Gaulish chiefs 
proposed. At last Guorteyrn, in virtue of his royal pre- 
eminence, and by the advice of several Gaulish chiefs, 
but without the consent of the Cambrians, resolved to en- 
gage a number of foreign soldiers who, for subsidies in 
money and grants of land, should in the British service 
wage war against the Scots and Picts — a measure which 
its opponents stigmatized as an act of cowardice, and 
which, as events showed afterward, contained in germ all 
the calamities which befell the Celtic race in Britain. 

Of the conquest itself, no accurate narrative remains. 
The version which is usually received is full of fable and 
frequent contradiction, and based in part on the state- 
ments in the histories of Gildas and Nennius, and in part 
upon chronicles which seem to owe much more to lost 
heroic poems, in which the exploits of the Saxon chief- 
tains are celebrated, than to any accurate and regular en- 
tries made of facts and dates by contemporary writers. 

The Welsh poems throw little light on the matter. 
The bards were for the most part content to trace the dim 
outlines of disaster, and to indicate by an allusion the issue 
of a fatal battle or the end of some celebrated warrior. 
The poems of the sixth century, at any rate in the form 
in which they have descended to our times, are too vague 
and obscure to be useful for the purposes of history. 
Nor are the British historians themselves more explicit. 
The collection of Welsh and Anglian legends which is 
attributed to one Nennius contains a few important facts 
about Northumbria, mixed up in confusion with genealo- 
gies, and miracles, and fragments of romance. Here, 
too, we get the list of the twelve battles of Arthur, with 
their Welsh names, " which were many hundred years ago 
unknown ; but who Arthur was," to use Milton's words, 
"and whether any such reigned in Britain, hath been 
doubted heretofore, and may again with good reason." 
Milton calls him " a very trivial writer, .... utterly 
unknown to the world till more than six hundred years 
after the days of Arthur." x Nennius, abbot of Bangor, 

1 For an account of Arthur, see Skene, Four Ancient Books of Wales. 
" Hie est Arthur de quo Britonum nugae hodieque delirant ; dignus plane quern 
non fallaces somniarent fabulse, sed veraces praedicarent historiae." — Will. 
Malmesb., Gesta., i, 8. The existence of this hero is now admitted, though the 
scene of his doubtful exploits is variously laid at Caerleon, in the Vale of Som- 



60 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

was once believed to have flourished about the beginning 
of the seventh century, but from internal evidence as re- 
gards errors in names of poems and places, it is now 
doubted whether any such person ever really existed at 
all, and whether the book which bears his name, Historia 
Britonum, is not the work of some anonymous writer of 
the twelfth century. At any rate, his account of the con- 
quest differs in many particulars from that of other Brit- 
ish writers, especially in reference to the early parts of 
the struggle. Hengist and Horsa and their men, who 
happened to be in Britain when Guorteyrn resolved to en- 
gage foreign auxiliaries, he says, were exiles, 1 who first 
fought bravely for the Britons and afterward took sides 
against them. " In those days," so his legend runs, " Vor- 
timer fought fiercely with Hengist and Horsa, and drove 
them out as far as Thanet ; and there three times he shut 
them in, and terrified, and smote, and slew. But they 
sent messengers to Germany to call for ships and soldiers, 
and afterward they fought with our kings, and sometimes 
they prevailed and enlarged their bounds, and sometimes 
they were beaten and driven away. And Vortimer four 
times waged on them fierce wars ; the first, as was told 
above; and the second, at the stream of Derwent; and 
the third, at a ferry which the Saxons called Epis-ford, 
where Horsa and Catigern fell. The fourth war he waged 
in the plain by the Written Stone on the Gaulish sea, and 
there he gained a victory, and the barbarians were beat- 
en, and they turned and fled, and went like women into 
their ships." 2 

In repeating the story from the English side, and quot- 
ing as far as possible the actual words of the Anglo-Saxon 
chronicles, beginning with the year 449, in which the con- 
quest of Kent, according to their reckoning, commenced, 
we will find that they differ from the above statement in 
almost every essential particular. The leaders, according 
to the latter, having landed at " Ypwine's-Fleet," at first 
gave aid to the British king ; " but after six years they 
fought with him at a place called '^Egil's-Threp/ and 
there Horsa was slain, and Hengist and his son 'Ash ' 

erset, in the Lowlands of Scotland, and in the Cumbrian Hills ; it seems to be 
true that he engaged in a war with the Princes of the Angles in Northumbria ; 
but his glory is due to the Breton romances, which were amplified in Wales 
and afterward adopted at the Court of the Plantagenets as the foundation of 
the epic of chivalry. 

1 Nennius, Hist. Brit, 28. a Nennius, Hist. Brit, 43, 44. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 6l 

took the kingdom ; and after two years they fought 
against the Britons at a place called ■ Crecgan-Ford/ and 
there slew four thousand men ; and the Britons then for- 
sook Kent-land and in mighty-terror fled to London- 
Burgh." 1 The last battle is described by Henry of Hun- 
tingdon in language which seems to have been taken 
from some heroic poem of which the original no longer 
exists. " When the Britons went into the war-play they 
could not bear up against the unwonted numbers of the 
Saxons, for more of them had lately come over, and these 
were chosen men, and they horribly gashed the bodies of 
the Britons with axes and broadswords/' 2 "And about 
eight years afterward Hengist and ' Ash J fought against 
the Welsh near Wipped's-Fleet, and there they slew 
twelve princes ; and one of their own thanes was slain, 
whose name was Wipped. And after eight years were 
fulfilled, Hengist and ' Ash ' fought again with the Welsh, 
and took unnumbered spoil ; and the Welsh fled from the 
English as from fire. And after fifteen years ' Ash ' came 
to the kingdom, and for twenty-four years he was king of 
the Kentish men." 3 

The commentators have sought in vain to harmonize 
these conflicting legends. Ebbesfleet, in Thanet, is usual- 
ly identified with the landing-place, and the sites of the 
two principal battles are placed at Aylesford and Cray- 
ford on the Medway. But the matter abounds in difficul- 
ties, and from neither of these documents is it possible to 
reach any satisfactory conclusion concerning the early 
days of the conquest. 

Gildas is a more important witness. He was a British 
ecclesiastic, born in the town of Alcluyd, now Dumbarton, 
as he states himself, in the year of the pugna Badonica, or 
" Siege of Mount Badon," which a chronological table, 
called Annates Cambrenses, places in the year 526. Refer- 
ring to this siege as having taken place forty-four years 
before he was writing, his history dates from over a cent- 
ury after the supposed landing of Hengist. Like his 
brother, the famous bard Aneurin — if Aneurin was his 
brother, for one theory is that Aneurin and Gildas were 
the same person — he commenced his career as a bard, or 
composer of poetry, in his native language. He was 
eventually converted to Christianity, and became a zeal- 

1 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Ann., 449, 455, 457. 

2 Henr. Huntingd., ii, 4. 3 A. S. Chron., Ann., 465, 473. 



62 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

ous preacher of his new religion. Gildas is the author of 
two declamatory effusions, the one commonly known as 
his history, De Excidio Britannia Liber Querulus ; the 
other, De Excidio Britannic? et Britonum Exidatione. They 
both consist principally of violent invectives directed 
against his own countrymen, not less than against their 
continental invaders and conquerors, and throw but little 
light upon the obscure period to which they relate. He 
was one of those who eventually retired to Brittany, 
where he died. He is said to lie buried in the cathedral 
of Vannes. 

As this author wrote in the middle of the sixth cent- 
ury, he may be taken as representing the opinions of 
men who might themselves have taken part in the war. 
But he himself made no pretence to anything like histori- 
cal accuracy. " If there were any records of my coun- 
try," he said, " they were burned in the fires of the con- 
quest, or carried away on the ships of the exiles, so that I 
can only follow the aark and fragmentary tale that was 
told me beyond the sea." No lamentation was ever keen- 
er in note, or more obscure in its story, than the book in 
which he recounted " the victory and crimes of Britain, 
the coming of a last enemy more dreadful than the first, 
the destruction of the cities, and the fortunes of the rem- 
nant that escaped." His work can hardly be considered a 
history, but seems to be rather intended for a dramatic 
description of an episode in the history of Cumbria. The 
drama begins in the year 450, when the Emperor Marcian 
reigned in the east and Valentinian the Third in the west. 
" The time was approaching when the iniquity of Britain 
should be fulfilled ; the rumor flew among the people 
that their old invaders were preparing a final assault ; a 
pestilence brooded over the land, and left more dead than 
the living could bury," and the complaint is swollen by 
invectives against the stubbornness of the rulers and the 
brutishness of the princes. We are brought to the cham- 
ber of Gwrtevyrn and his nobles, debating what means of 
escape might be found. " Then the eyes of the proud 
king and of all his councilors were darkened, and this 
help, or this death-blow they devised, to let into our island 
the foes of God and man, the fierce Saxons, whose name 
is accursed, as it were a wolf into the sheep-cotes, to beat 
off the nations of the north." 1 

1 Gildas, Hist., 4. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 63 

The men came over, he says, in three " keels," loaded 
with arms and stores. Their first success in driving out 
the Scots and Picts was followed by the engagement of a 
larger force of mercenaries; but a quarrel soon arose 
about their pay, which grew into a general mutiny. 
Their allowance, he adds, was found for a long time, and 
so " the dog's mouth was stopped " — citing the native 
proverb ; " but afterward they picked a quarrel, and 
threatened to plunder the island unless a greater liberal- 
ity was shown." The historian denounces them in a mys- 
tical and fervid strain : they are " young lions," wasting 
the land, and " whelps from the lair of the German lion- 
ess " ; and their settlement in Northumbria is described, 
in the words of the prophet, as the wild vine, that 
" brought forth branches and shot forth sprigs," the root 
of bitterness and the plant of iniquity. The enemy is 
next likened to a consuming fire, as he burst from his 
new home in the east and ravaged the island as far as 
the Western Sea; and the chronicler describes, with a 
horrible minuteness, the sack of some Cumbrian city, and 
the destruction of the faithful found therein. " And some 
of the miserable remnant were caught on the hills and 
slaughtered, and others were worn out with hunger, and 
yielded to a lifelong slavery. Some passed across the 
sea with lamentations instead of the sailor's song, chant- 
ing, as the wind filled their sails, * Lord ! Thou hast given 
us like sheep appointed for meat, and hast scattered us 
among the heathen ' ; but others trusted their lives to the 
clefts of the mountains, to the forests, and the rocks of 
the sea, and so abode in their country, though sore 
afraid." 1 

The next original authority for the earlier portion of 
English history is Bede, upon whom the epithet of " Ven- 
erable " has been justly bestowed by the respect and 
gratitude of posterity. He was born some time between 
the years 672 and 677, at Yarrow, a village near the 
mouth of the Tyne, in the country of Durham, and Avas 
educated in the neighboring monastery of Wearmouth, 

1 The principal migrations to Brittany took place in the years 500 and 
513. With the consent of the ancient inhabitants, who acknowledged them as 
brethren of the same Celtic origin, the new settlers distributed themselves over 
the whole northern coast, as far as the little river Coesnon, and southward as 
far as the territory of the city of Veneti, now called Vannes. Many curious 
documents relating to the Britons of the migration are found in the Appendices 
to the Histories of Brittany, by Halleguen and Du Courson. See also E. Sou- 
vestre Les demiers Bretons. 



64 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

where he resided, as he himself relates, from the age of 
seven to that of twelve, during which he applied himself 
with all diligence, he says, to the meditation of the Script- 
ures, the observance of the regular discipline, and the 
daily practice of singing in the church. In his nineteenth 
year he took deacon's orders, and in his thirtieth he was 
ordained priest. From this date till his death, in 735, 
nearly three hundred years after the first Saxon invasion 
of Britain, he remained in his monastery, giving up his 
whole time to study and writing. His principal task was 
the composition of his celebrated Historia Ecclesiastica, a 
title which prepares us for a great preponderance of the 
ecclesiastical over the secular history of the country. 
Bede's own authorities, as we learn from his introduction, 
were certain of the most learned bishops and abbots of 
his contemporaries, of whom he sought special informa- 
tion as to the antiquities of their own establishments. All 
these facts must be borne in mind when we consider the 
value of his authority, that is, his means of knowing, as 
determined by the conditions of time and place. 

Now, it is from Bede that the current opinions as to 
the details of the Anglo-Saxon invasion are mainly taken ; 
especially the threefold divisions into Angles, Saxons, and 
Jutes, as well as the distribution of these three divisions 
over the different parts of England. 1 His is the first 
statement concerning the Saxon invasions which contains 
the names of either the Angles or the Jutes. Gildas, who 
wrote more than one hundred and fifty years earlier, 
mentions only the Saxons. It is also the passage which 
all subsequent writers and chroniclers have either trans- 
lated or adopted. It reappears in Alfred, and again in 
the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, thus : 

Of Iotum comon Cantware 3 From the Jutes came the in- 
Wihtware ' f ys seo maeiS t5e habitants of Kent and of Wight, 
nu eardaS on Wiht * -j f cynn that is, the race that now dwells 

1 Advenerunt autem de tribus Germanise populis fortioribus, id est Saxoni- 
bus, Anglis, Jutis. De Jutarum origine sunt Cantuarii, et Victuarii, hoc est ea 
gens quae Vectam tenet insulam et ea quae usque hodie in provincia Occidenta- 
lium Saxonum Jutarum natio nominatur, posita contra ipsam insulam Vectam. 
De Saxonibus, id est, ea regione quae nunc Antiquorum Saxonum cognominatur, 
venere Orientales Saxones, Meridiani Saxones, Occidui Saxones. Porro de An- 
glis hoc est de ilia patria quae Angulus dicitur, et ab illo tempore usque hodie 
manere desertus inter provincias Jutarum et Saxonum perhibetur, Orientales 
Angli, Mediterranei Angli, Merci, tota Northanhymbrorum progenies, id est 
illarum gentium quae ad Boream Humbri fluminis inhabitant, caeterique An- 
glorum populi sunt orti. — Historia Ecclesiastica, i, 15. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 65 

on West-Sexum J?e man nu gyt in Wight, and that tribe amongst 
haet Iutna cyn * of Eald-Seaxon the West Saxons which is yet 
comon East-Sexa ' 3 Sufi-Sexa * called the Jute tribe. From the 
^West-Sexan. Of Angle comon* Old-Saxons came the East-Sax- 
se d siSSan stod weste betwyx ons, and South-Saxons, and 
Iutum j Seaxum * East-Engla * West-Saxons. From the An- 
Midel-Angla ' Mearca ' 3 ealle gles' land (which has since 
NorShymbra. always stood waste betwixt the 

Jutes and Saxons) came the 
East - Angles, Middle - Angles, 
Mercians, and all the Northum- 
brians. 

Now, the Saxon Chronicle 1 consists of a series of en- 
tries from the earliest times to the reign of King Stephen, 
each under its year — the date of the Anglo-Saxon inva- 
sion being the one usually given as A. D. 449. The value of 
such a record depends upon the extent to which the chron- 
ological entries are contemporaneous with the events 
noticed. When this is the case, the statement is of the 
highest historical value ; when, however, it is merely 
taken from some earlier or later authority, or from tra- 
dition, it loses the character of a register, and becomes 
merely a series of supposed facts and dates, correct or in- 
correct, as the case may be. When the Anglo-Saxon 
really begins to be a contemporaneous register is uncertain ; 
all we know is, that it is so for the latest, and not so for 
earlier entries. So, when it speaks of " a tribe among the 
West-Saxons, which is yet called the Jute tribe," it gives 
only a sort of contemporary evidence that in the time of 
Bede, from whose history the passage is copied, there was 
a people in England known by the name of Jutes ; but 
that these were the descendants of a Jute tribe, believed 
to have been among the first invaders, some three hun- 
dred years previous, and all the time keeping up a distinct 
nationality among the West-Saxons, is by no means cer- 
tain. Indeed, the fact is by some greatly doubted. Bede 
calls them both Jutes and Vita. King Alfred writes Gea- 
turn; Ethelwerd, Giotos ; and Eotas, Iotas, Iutan, Iotan, 
and even Ghetes, are the various forms in Anglo-Saxon to 
denote a class of people supposed to have come from Jut- 
land. Considering the unsettled state of orthography in 
those days, all these forms of Jut, Jot, Iut, lot, Eot, Giot, 

1 Generally cited by Mr. Freeman under the title of the English Chronicles, 
owing to his repudiation of the term Anglo-Saxon in the place of English. See 
pages 371-373. and 381-385. 



66 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

and even Ghet, Gaut, Geat, Gwit, Wiht, and Vit, 1 are good 
enough to represent some sound we now would write Jut, 
and to suggest Jutland as the original home of those peo- 
ple. But in ancient maps that country is called Noriuthia, 
and Gautland, Gdtland, Jotland, Reidhgot aland, and Eygotha- 
land are the old Scandinavian names by which the coun- 
try was originally known, 2 until the latter part of the elev- 
enth century, when we find it called Jutland, and its in- 
habitants Juthas, by Adam of Bremen, in his description 
of Denmark. 3 In the year 952, the people themselves 
called the country Vitland '/* and as late as 1309 A. D., we 
find it referred to in a Westphalian document by the name 
of Vithlandia? 

Jutes, therefore, as a national name, is rather of com- 
paratively recent date. In the first century there was 
a Teutonic tribe on the Danube, known to the Romans 
as the Iutugi, Juthungi, Vithungi, afterward referred to as 
Eutii or Eucii by Theodebert on notifying the Emperor 
Julian of their submission, 6 and again, by Venantius Fortu- 
natus, as Euthiones, and as enemies of the Franks. 7 Later 
on they are spoken of as an insignificant tribe, dwelling 
near the Varini, between the Elbe and the Oder, whence, 
in course of time, they migrated to the extreme north of 
the Danish peninsula, where Adam of Bremen found 
them. As to the etymology of the name, it is undoubt- 

1 The permutation of G=V=W is common in almost all languages ; as 
wages, in French, gages ; warren, garenne ; waffle, gaufre ; war, w er, guerre ; 
Walter, Gauthier ; Wales, Galles ; William, Guillaume, etc. The nation men- 
tioned as Varini by Pliny and Tacitus is called Warni by Jornandes ; Cassi- 
dorus writes Guarni. The permutation of G=J=Y is found in the English 
yet, the German Jetzt, and the Anglo-Saxon get, git, giet, gyt. The J for G is 
often heard in Berlin among the uneducated. 

8 Shiold redh lindum, thar sem nil er kollut Danmork, en tha var kallat 
Gdtland. — Skalds kapattn, p. 146. That heiter mi Jotland er tha var kallat 
Reidhgotaland. — Form. Edda., p. 14. 

3 Prima quidem pars Danise, quae Jutland dicitur, ab Egdora in boream 
longitudine portenditur .... in eum angulum, qui Wendila dicitur, ubi Jut- 
land finem habet. — Adam Bremensis, De Situ Danice, c. 208. Primi ad ostium 
Baltici sinus in Australi ripa versus nos Dani, quos Juthas appellant, usque at 
Sliam lacum habitant. — Idem., c. 221. 

4 Dania cismarina quam Vitland incolse appellant. — Annates Saxonici, 
A. D. 952. 

5 Westph. Monum. rer. Germ., iii, 362. In old Danish chronicles, Vitland 
is sometimes called Vithesleth. 

6 Subactis cum Saxonibus Euciis, qui se nobis voluntate propria tradiderunt 
usque in oceani litoribus dominatio nostra porrigitur. — Vgl. S, 375. 

7 Quern Geta, Wasco tremunt, Danus. Euthio, Saxo, Britannus, 
Cum patre quos acie te domitasse patet. 

— Venant. Fortunat, ad Chimeric, c. 580. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 6? 

edly a variation of the Gothic root thiuda, tint, diut, mean- 
ing " men of the nation," which has given the Latin forms, 
Teutoni, Teutones, Niuthones, on the one hand, and Iuti, 
Euti, Eut hones, Euthiones, etc., on the other; and so the 
name of Tent or Deut, which, with its suffix ish, sch, ch, has 
produced the forms Deut sch and Dutch, and which, being 
after all of remote Celtic origin, could very easily have 
changed in British mouths into Jutes} and been so recorded 
in writing in all the various forms in which we afterward 
find it. That, first used as a term of fear and hatred, it 
remained in the language to indicate particularly those 
foreign tribes that occupied Kent and the Isle of Wight, 
as being more savage and cruel than the rest, is very likely ; 
" Lord," says a certain litany, " deliver us from the fury 
of the Jutes " ; but that no trace of any numerous anS 
formidable tribe or league of that name is found in the 
fourth or fifth century anywhere on the Continent is 
quite certain. 

Nicknames, like surnames, have at all times been be- 
stowed on individuals and parties, sometimes in admira- 
tion, though more generally from hatred or dislike ; and 
many men of note, and nations famous in history, have 
gloried in the end in names that have been thrown at 
them first in spite or in derision. Nicknames for men 
and tribes were very common among the early Ger- 
mans. 2 The names of Franks, Saxons, Langobards, and 
others, have had no other origin ; and in the same way 
that of Deutsch or Dutch, pronounced Jutes by the Brit- 
ons, to designate the early German marauders, may have 
clung to the first body of invaders, and remained asso- 
ciated with the terror they inspired. Also nothing is 
more natural than that the latter should have kept to the 
original name of Dutch or Deutsch, however mispro- 
nounced, as a tribal designation, among the many others 
who came after them ; or that their descendants should 
be found still, in Bede's time, in Kent and Wight and 
among the West-Saxons, just as the descendants of the 
original Dutch settlers in America are still found in par- 
ticular localities, where they are known from others by 
their names, their features, their habits, and in many in- 
stances even by their still speaking their forefathers' lan- 

1 Jew for dew, and ajew for adieu, are by no means uncommon mispronun- 
ciations, even now, among the uneducated. 

2 See Kemble's Essay on the Anglo-Saxon Nicknames. — Archseol. (Winches- 
ter), 1845. 



6S ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

guage. That in the time of King Ethelbert the people 
of Kent spoke Dutch is proved by the fact that Augus- 
tin, on his mission to England, took with him as inter- 
preters men from the Salian Franks, who originally came 
from the Rhenish Netherlands, where the language was 
the ancient idiom of Holland ; x while a comparison of the 
Asega-boc, containing the ancient laws of Friesland and 
North-Holland, with the Kentish laws of Ethelbert and 
his successors, will further show that the language and 
the customs of these nations in the sixth and seventh cent- 
uries was still identical. This is corroborated, moreover, 
by the vast amount of words which English and Dutch 
have yet in common, and which was even much greater 
in the older forms of language ; while, on the other hand, 
no trace whatsoever of Jutish occupation is found any- 
where in England, whether as showing a distinct and 
separate nationality, or in the way of language — a fact 
which stands in remarkable contrast with the numerous 
traces which the Saxons, the Angles, and after them the 
Danes, have left behind as incontestable evidences of 
their occupancy. 

Intimately connected with the Jutish legend is that 
of the great chieftains Hengist and Horsa, which also has 
elements in it that seem to belong to fiction rather than 
to history. Thus, when we find them approaching the 
coasts of Kent in three vessels — exactly the same number 
in which JElla, some twenty-five years later, effected a 
landing in Sussex, and in which, forty years later, again, 
Cerdic came to Wessex — we are strongly reminded of the 
old Gothic tradition which carries a migration of the 
three nations, the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Gepidae, also 
in three vessels, to the mouth of the Vistula. Vessels in 
those days were not very large ; 2 and to think that the 
crews of Hengist and Horsa's three vessels, after some 
bloody encounters with the Scots and Picts, in which 
they must have lost at least a few of their number, were 
still strong enough to set the whole British nation at 
defiance, even after the reinforcements referred to by 
Gildas, would be like believing that the epic poem of 

1 See pages 107, 166, 193, 386, and 430-440. 

2 Chance has preserved for us in a Sleswick peat-bog one of the war-keels 
of these early seamen. The boat is flat-bottomed, seventy feet long, and eight 
or nine feet wide, its sides of oak boards, fastened with bark ropes and iron 
bolts. Fifty oars drove it over the waves with a freight of warriors, whose arms 
— axes, swords, lances, and knives — were found heaped together. — Lubbock, 
Prehistoric Times. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



6 9 



Beowulf and the Chanson de Roland had reference to 
facts that had actually occurred. Bede says he was in- 
formed that a monument with Horsa's name was standing 
in the eastern parts of Kent, 1 but where this was, exactly, 
seems to have been unknown as early as the time of King 
Alfred, the passage in which reference to such a monu- 
ment is made by Bede having been even omitted from 
the English version of his history. Its site being fixed 
subsequently at Horsted, near Aylesford, seems chiefly 
due to the great cromlech in that neighborhood having 
been already assigned to Prince Catigern, who, according 
to Nennius, fell in battle on the same day as Horsa. One 
point being fixed, it became easy to identify the rest ; and 
hence the apparent certainty with which localities have 
been settled for almost all the events in the legends of 
Hengist and Horsa. 

It is still, however, exceedingly doubtful whether 
these champions ever have at all existed. We are told 
that the evidence for their actual existence is " at least as 
strong as the suspicion of their mythical character." 2 
But it is urged, on the other hand, that the names of 
" Horse and Mare" 3 are on the face of them symbolical, 
and should be taken as referring to some banner of the 
host, some crest or emblem of the tribe, or perhaps to 
some reverence for the sacred white horses, which the 
Germans supposed to be " aware of the designs of heav- 
en." 4 There seems, however, to be no valid reason why 
a popular captain should not be called " the horse," since 
we read of others who were nicknamed after the crow, 
the wolf, and the boar; 5 such names, moreover, being by 
no means uncommon among our North American In- 
dians. But there is a stronger objection to the chroni- 
cler's statements in the fact that Hengist is the hero of 
such numerous and such divergent traditions. This 
crafty and valiant prince has left a legend on every coast 
between Jutland and the Cornish Promontory. All the 
old stories are fastened on his name. Thus Geoffry of 

1 Duces fuisse perhibentur eorum primi duo fratres Hengist et Horsa ; e 
quibus Horsa, postea occisus in bello a Brittonibus, hactenus in orientalibus 
Cantise partibus monumentum habet suo nomine insigne. — Bede, Hist. Eccl., 

l> I5 *o 

2 Freeman, Norm. Conquest, i, 10. 

3 Hengst in Dutch means " stallion " ; in Anglo-Saxon, henges. In the lat- 
ter language, hors means " a horse, a nag, a steed." 

4 Tacitus, Germ., io. 

6 Kemble's Essay on the Anglo-Saxon Nicknames. 



;o ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

Monmouth, who is a Welsh authority, and flourished in 
the reign of Henry II, relates how " Hengist obtained 
from the Britons as much land as could be inclosed by an 
ox-hide ; then, cutting the hide into thongs, inclosed a 
much larger space than the granters intended, on which 
he erected Thong Castle, and thereby gained a kingdom^ 
Elsewhere we read of three hundred British chieftains in 
Kent slain with knives concealed at a banquet, 2 and of a 
princess, as in the legends of Nennius, exchanged for 
three provinces by the king and his fur-clad councilors. 
Hengist seems to be ubiquitous, and fills all kinds of char- 
acters. In one story he serves as a legionary in the army 
of Valentinian the Third ; in another he comes as " the 
wickedest of pagans," to ravage the coasts of Gaul. 3 In 
the fragmentary poem which is known as " The Fight at 
Finnesburg," Hengist leads a band of pirates to burn the 
palace of the Friesian king ; but in the legends of the Fries- 
landers themselves he is claimed as the father of their 
kings, and as the builder of their strongholds on the 
Rhine. 4 

But while all accounts of the early invasions of Brit- 
ain, by a people coming from Jutland, rest on tradition 
only, and are all the more open to doubt as they are 
coupled with legends closely allied to fable, quite differ- 
ent it is as regards the Saxons and the Angles ; for, 
though in their case also, we have no contemporary 
evidence concerning the details of their several invasions 
of the country, the best of historical evidence of their 
coming and staying there is in the name and the language 
of the country itself. Thus, while it will ever be doubt- 
ful whether there was a people calling themselves Jutes 
among the first invaders of Britain, it is certain that at 

1 Among the old Saxons, the tradition is in reality the same, though re- 
corded with a slight variety of detail. In their story, a lapfull of earth is pur- 
chased at a dear rate from a Thuringian ; the companions of the Saxon jeer at 
him for his imprudent bargain ; but he sows the purchased earth upon a large 
space of ground, which he claims, and, by the aid of his comrades, ultimately 
wrests it from the Thuringians. — Kemble, Saxons in England. The legend is 
found also among the Russians. — Grimm., Deut. Rechtsalt, p. 90. 

9 The same story is told of the old Saxons in Thuringia, and again in as 
many words by Widukind, a monk of Corvey in Flanders, who wrote the eccle- 
siastical history of his monastery. 

8 John of Wallingford calls Hengist " omnium paganorum sceleratissimus," 
and mentions his attacks on the Gaulish coast. — Gale, xv, Script., 533. 

4 The Friesian legends treat Hengist as the founder of Leyden and the 
builder of a temple of " Warns," or Woden at Doccum. Hamcon., Frisia, 33 ; 
Suffrid. Antiqu., Fris., ii, 11 ; Kemp., Hist. Fris., ii, 21, 22. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



71 



one time Saxons and Angles were quite numerous. 
Whether these, however, formed two distinct nations, 
speaking different languages, or only two branches of the 
same nationality, with possibly different dialects ; or else, 
whether " Saxon " and " Angle " were merely the names 
of separate leagues, composed of different tribes, of which 
there were many such in ancient Germany, either for the 
better defense of all from the Romans, or in order the 
more advantageously to assume the offensive against the 
latter, are questions for whose solution we must look on 
the Continent itself, before the time the great invasions 
commenced. 

As we have seen already, the first landing of Julius 
Caesar in Britain was caused or justified by the assur- 
ance that his Gallic enemies recruited their armies, and 
repaired their losses, by the aid of their British kinsmen 
and allies, 1 which seems to imply a long and considerable 
intercourse between the southern and eastern shores of 
Britain and the western districts of Gaul. When the fort- 
une of the arms of Rome had prevailed over her ill-dis- 
ciplined antagonists, and both continent and island were 
subject to the all-embracing rule, it is highly probable 
that the most familiar intercourse was resumed and con- 
tinued to prevail. In the time of Strabo, the products of 
the island — wheat, cattle, gold, silver, tin, iron, skins, 
slaves, etc. — were exported by the natives, no doubt prin- 
cipally to the neighboring coasts ; 2 and as there was such 
an active intercourse between the Celtic nations on the 
different sides of the channel, we may well suppose that 
the piratical tribes on the German ocean were not slow 
in seizing their opportunities for plunder, both on sea 
and on the shores. Thus they found their way into the 
British isles from time immemorial, sometimes in small 
parties merely for plunder, then again in numbers large 
enough to get a permanent foothold. As early as the 
second century, Chauci and Menapii are mentioned 
among the inhabitants of the southeast coast of Ireland. 3 
Long before them, a number of emigrants from Flanders, 
driven from their continental homes by some great inun- 
dation, had come over, first imploring hospitality, and 

1 Caesar, De Bell. Gall, iii, 8, 9 ; iv, 20. 

2 Strabo, iii, 177. Much tin is carried across from Britain to the opposite 
shore of Gaul, and is thence carried on horseback through the midst of the 
Celtic country to the people of Marseilles, and also to the city of Narbonne. — 
Diod. Sic, v, 38. 8 Ptolemy, ii, 2. 



72 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

then claiming the right to stay. 1 More numerous were 
the Coranians, who occupied the present counties of Lin- 
coln, Leicester, Rutland, Northampton, Nottingham, and 
Derby, and who, according to the Welsh tradition itself, 
were Germans. 

Under Roman rule, the very exigencies of military 
service had rendered Britain familiar to the nations of 
the Continent. The Batavi, under their own chieftains, 
had earned a share of Roman glory there. 2 The policy of 
the Emperor Marcus Antoninus, at the successful close of 
the Marcomanic war, had transplanted to Britain multi- 
tudes of Germans, to serve at once as instruments of Ro- 
man power and as hostages for their countrymen on the 
frontier of the empire. 3 At a later period, Probus settled 
Vandals and Burgundians in the island. All these settle- 
ments can not but have left long and lasting traces of their 
presence in various parts of the country ; and when Ca- 
rausius raised the standard of revolt in Britain, A. D. 287, 
he probably calculated upon the assistance of the Ger- 
mans in Britain, as well as on that of their allies and 
brethren on the continent. 4 Nineteen years later, at the 
death of Constantius, his son Constantine was solemnly 
elected Cassar in Britain, and among his supporters was 
Crocus, or Hrocus, 5 an Alamannic king, who had accom- 
panied his father from Germany. Still later, under Val- 
entinian, we find an auxiliary prince of Alamanni serving 
with the Roman legions in Britain. 6 

With so many Germans living in a country whose 
fertile fields had long before merited the praises of the 
first Roman victor, and with the exalted reports of its 
wealth and prosperity witnessed by occasional German 
traders, the predatory spirit of their kinsfolk was readily 
aroused, and marked out the island as the great aim of 
their piratical enterprises. As they were familiar with 

1 See page 5. 

2 Tacitus, Germ., iv. See notes, pages 36, 43, and 75. 

3 Dio. Cass., lxxi, lxxii ; Gibbon, Dec, ix. See page 46, note 2. 

4 Carausius was a Menapian ; but in the third century the inhabitants 
of the Menapian territory were Teutonic. Aurelius Victor calls him a Bata- 
vian. — See Gibbon, Dec, xiii. 

5 This permutation of c and h is still heard in Florence, where the people 
pronounce cocometo, hohotnero, with a peculiar aspiration. See page 48. 

6 Valentianus ... in Macriani locum, Bucinobantibus, quae contra Mogun- 
tiacum gens est Alamanna, regem Fraomarium ordinavit ; quern paullo postea, 
quoniam recens excursus eundem penitus vastaverat pagum, in Britannos trans- 
latum potestate tribuni Alamannorum prsefecerat numero, multitudine, viribus- 
que ea tempestate florenti. — Ammianus, Hist., xxix, c. 4. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



73 



the sea and all its dangers, the way across the intervening 
ocean was to them far less perilous and tedious than a 
march through the territories of jealous or hostile neigh- 
bors, or even than a coasting voyage along barbarous 
shores, defended by a yet more barbarous population. A 
northeast wind would, almost without effort of their own, 
have carried their ships from one shore to the other. 
There seems, then, every probability that bodies, more or 
less numerous, of coast-Germans, perhaps actually Saxons 
and Angles, had colonized the eastern shores of Britain 
long before the time generally assumed for their advent. 
This will explain the appointment of a Roman officer of 
state with the title of "Count of the Saxon frontier," 1 
whose government extended from what is now called 
Portsmouth to Wells, in Norfolk, and was supported by 
various civil and military establishments, dispersed along 
the whole seaboard. His business was, not only to watch 
the coast already occupied by these foreigners, but also to 
guard it against the enterprises of the continental pirates 
which, during the fourth century, had become more and 
more frequent and appalling. 2 All these robbers, whether 
Franks, Dutch, Friesian, or Saxon, indeed all nations or 
tribes that lived on the opposite coast, were called indis- 
criminately Saxons* by the Britons and the Romans ; but 
as they are more particularly referred to as coming from 
the " Land of Marshes," we must look for them especially 
in these lands, of which the central part is Holland. 

Following its shores from the Scheldt northward, along 
the Zeeland islands, the coasts of Holland proper and of 
Friesland, what strikes one first is the general want of slope ; 
the rivers hardly drag themselves along, swollen and 
sluggish, with long, black-looking waves. Originally its 
soil was but a sediment of mud, the mere alluvium of the 
river, which the water was ever ready to wash away again. 4 

1 " Comes Litoris Saxonici per Brittannias."- — Notitia utriusque Imperii. 

2 Hoc tempore (a. d. 364) Picti, Saxonesque et Scotti et Attacotti Britannos 
serumnis vexavere continuis. — Ammianus, Hist., xxvi, 4. 

3 Illius effectum curis, ne tela timerem 
Scotica, ne Pictum tremerem, ne litore toto 
Prospicerem dubiis venturum Saxona ventis. 

Claudian, de IV, Cons. Hon., xxiv. 
Quin et aremoricus piratam Saxona tractus 
Sperabat, cui pelle salum sulcare Britannum 
Ludus, et assuto glaucum mare findere lembo. 

Sidonii Apoll., Carmina, vii, 88. 

4 The very name of Holland describes this condition ; hoi in Dutch, holh in 
Anglo-Saxon, meaning " hollow, empty." 

7 



74 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



The ancient maps of Holland represent the country as a 
mass of ponds and lakes, now all drained, and converted 
into the most fertile lands found on the world's surface ; 
while dykes of the most wonderful strength and structure 
confine the river's course within allowed limits. Its great 
enemy is the sea, but this its men have learned to fight. 
The Friesians, already in their ancient laws, speak of the 
league they have made against " the ferocious ocean." 
From Holland to Friesland, a string of small islands bears 
witness to its ravages. In ancient times they were all 
connected, and at low tides their wide and extensive 
beach afforded easy communication. In 1282 a terrible 
storm broke through into Lake Flevo or Almare, now the 
Zuyder Zee, destroying seventy-two towns and villages 
and drowning over one hundred thousand persons. The 
first Roman fleet, a thousand vessels strong, perished 
there. To this day, ships wait a month or more in sight 
of port, tossed upon the great white waves, not daring to 
risk themselves in the shifting, winding channel, notorious 
for its wrecks. In winter a heavy crust of ice covers the 
streams ; the sea drives back the frozen masses as they 
descend ; they pile themselves with fearful crash upon the 
sand-banks, swaying to and fro, and now and then one 
may see a vessel, seized as in a vice, split in two within 
their violent grasp. In spite of all these dangers, or 
rather thanks to their immensity, which has brought out 
corresponding energies to combat them, Holland has be- 
come one of the richest and most densely populated coun- 
tries on the globe. With scarcely a square rod between, 
village touches village for miles and miles along, and 
many of the inhabitants have lived and grown old with- 
out ever seeing an acre of uncultivated ground. Its 
cities are numerous, and models of neatness and good 
order, and few there are that do not show evidence of 
early culture and high civilization. Its educational estab- 
lishments are many, all richly endowed and of the high- 
est order; and nowhere is useful knowledge more wide- 
spread among all ranks of people. Nowhere have liberty 
and independence struck earlier or deeper roots, nor has 
oppression or foreign aggressions met with stouter or 
more strenuous resistance. Small as is the nation, com- 
pared with its powerful neighbors, it has successfully 
withstood the victorious armies of Spain and France, and 
at <one time even contended with England for the suprem- 
acy of the seas. Yet these people, now so prosperous, so 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 75 

cultivated, and so free, are the lineal descendants of those 
half-naked savages who, centuries ago, lived on the same 
soil, then covered with dense forests, bogs and marshes, 
whence, in their osier, hide-covered barks, they ventured 
out upon the stormy seas, bent on piracy and plunder. 

In Caesar's time, the whole district between the Rhine 
and the Scheldt was occupied by these people, who 
formed a portion of the Teutonic tribe of the Chatti. 
While they occupied the Betuwe, which the Romans 
called "Insula Batavorum," 1 they went by the name of 
Batavi, while farther north, through Holland and Fries- 
land, they were known as Friesians. After their alliance 
with the Romans, no foreign tribe was more faithful to its 
treaty. Their tribute was only one of men for the Roman 
army, 2 and their bravery was such as to draw the admira- 
tion and esteem of the Roman people, who called them 
brothers and friends. 3 The Batavian cavalry especially 
enjoyed high renown, and was even extolled by so good 
a judge as Plutarch. 4 In addition to the Batavians and 
Friesians, and to the south and southeast of these, were 
the Usipetes, Bructeri, Sicambri, Chamavi, Attuarii, Chattu- 
ari, Stievi, Eburones and others, of whom we know, in these 
days at least, little more than their names. Many and 
varied must have been the dialects current among these 
tribes, since some of them are still found on the lips of the 
people, especially along the coasts and on the islands, 
where, in addition to the present national language, they 
continue to be the home-speech of the fishermen and farm- 
ers. All these dialects, however, varied and numerous as 

1 Mora parte quadam eu Rheno recepta, quae appellator Vahalis, insulam 
efficit Batavorum. — Caesar, De Bell. Gall., iv, 10. 

2 The Batavians from the island formed by the Rhine and Maas took a 
prominent part in the conquest of Britain. — Tac, Hist., i, 59 ; iv, 12 ; Ann., 
xiv, 38; Agiic, 18, 36. They were originally an offshoot from the Chatti of 
the Black Forest, and were celebrated like their parent-tribe for their courage 
and endurance in war, " counting fortune but a chance and valor the only cer- 
tainty." — Tac, Germ., 29, 30, 31 ; Hist., iv, 61, 64. In A. D. 98 Tacitus wrote 
of them as follows : " Through some domestic quarrel they crossed over to their 
present home, where they were to become a portion of the empire. They still 
enjoy that honor and the privileges of their old alliance, for they are not de- 
based by tribute nor ground down by the tax-gatherer ; they are exempt from 
subsidies and benevolences, and are kept for the wars — put on one side to be used 
only in a fight, like weapons stored in an armory." — Tac, Germ., c. 29. 

3 Fratres et amici. — Grut., 75, Scriver Antiq., infer. Germ., p. 175. 

4 iirfjyayev Oftapos 'AAcprjpos rovs KaXovfievovs fHardfiovs 'elffl 8e rep/xavuv iirircis 
&pi<rroi. — Plut., Otho, xii. 

I-4poi T€ lirtreis iirlXetcroi, cits to rwv fiaraffiuv .... 6vop.a, on 8)7 Kpari<TTot 
limsvup e*Vi, Keirai. — Dio Cassius, iv, 24. 



76 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

they were, came within one or other of three well-defined 
groups — the Frankish, Friesian, or Saxon, which, though 
differing in parts, were nevertheless mutually understood. 
Caesar, Tacitus, Ptolemy, are alike silent as to the 
name of Franks, although they often speak of other tribes 
which occupied the districts in which we afterward find 
them. So it must have originated at a later date, and was 
probably first an epithet rather than a proper name, and 
possibly came into being during the third century, as the 
name of a league, composed of several tribes, against the 
ceaseless attempts of Rome. The first we hear of them 
is in the year 241, when the soldiers of Aurelian, who 
just before had been to the North-German frontier, 
marched out of Rome on their way to the Persian war, 
singing a rough barrack song that had reference to their 
late encounters with the Franks. 1 When their history 
begins, they are found in three groups, mostly on the left 
bank of the Rhine, from Mainz to the sea. One of these 
dwelt in Holland, north of the Betuwe, having the river 
Saal, 2 now the Yssel, as their eastern limit, and filling the 
parts, now called the Veluwe, south of Lake Flevo, and 
the territory of the Sicambri. Southeast of these was a 
second group, which took in the Chamavi, Bructeri, and 
Attuarii ; and beyond these was a third, composed of the 
Chattuari and Suevi. By degrees all these filled the 
whole district from the Moselle to the Betuwe, up to the 
territory occupied by the Friesians, and in 280 A. D. they 
had spread down to the sea, inhabiting the marshy delta 
of the Rhine, which in those days was slow and shallow 
in its lower course, the main waters having been diverted 
by the Maas. 3 From there they commenced, as early as 
287 A. D., their naval expeditions to Britain and down the 
coast of Gaul, and gradually crowded in upon its northern 
frontier, until finally under Hlodowig, the Salian Franks 
became masters of Northern Gaul, while their brethren, 
the Ripuarians, drifting toward the east, soon followed 
them, and occupied the northeastern part of that country. 
It is not till the days of Hlodowig that any light is thrown 
on the Frankish institutions, the Lex Salica and the Lex 

1 Mille Sarmatas, mille Francos semel et semel occidimus, 

Mille mille mille, mille mille Persas quserimus. — Vopiscus, in Aurelian, vii. 

2 Hence the name of Salian Franks. The country northeast of De venter 
is still called Saalland. 

3 " Paludicolse Sigambri," or " Franci inviis strati paludibus." — Vopiscus, 
Prob. 12. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



77 



Ripuaria belonging- to the end of the fifth and beginning 
of the sixth century. At that time, as it had probably 
been ever since their first organization, each tribe had its 
chief or king, elected by the whole body of freemen from 
one family as Hlodowig or Clovis, 1 for instance, from 
among the Merowings ; there were also sundry officers of 
justice and administration, grafs? as they were called, but 
no more noble than the rest of the free Franks, who formed 
a republic of fighting men, each man's voice being as 
potent in the mall or tribal council as his arm was in bat- 
tle. " King," " free Frank," and " slave of war " — these 
are the only grades known among them. In this respect, 
their organization was that of all other Teutonic confed- 
erations. Their physical features, too, were those of the 
race in general; the fierceness of their looks, the wrinkled 
scowl about their brows, their wild blue eyes, their light 
complexion, their long fair hair, and especially their large 
limbs, contrasted strangely with the little stature of the 
Romans. 3 Their weapons, too, were quite characteristic, 
being their own, and closely connected with their name. 
They fought either with the framea — a word which is 
almost certainly a copyist's error for franca — which was a 
light javelin tipped with iron on either side ; a weapon fit 
for casting and smiting, and sometimes spoken of as a 
little axe, while the francisca was their battle-axe. Many 
of these weapons have been found in English grave-yards, 
especially in Kent, 4 showing the Franks to have been 
among the early invaders of Britain. 5 

When first we hear of the Friesians, we find them in 
possession of the same district which they still occupy, 
but spreading farther west and south, between Lake 

1 Hlodowig, in Dutch, Lodewyk ; in German, Ludtvig ; in French, Louis ; 
in English, Lewis. 

2 In Dutch, graaf ; in Anglo-Saxon, geref and gerefa, " a reeve or sheriff; " 
the fiscal officer of the shire, or county, or city, under an ealdorman. 

3 " Francus habet nomen a ferita sua," says Ermoldus, i, 344 ; and the 
word carries the sense of " boldness, defiance, freedom." As it did not lend 
itself well to Latin verse-endings, we find the poets of the time delighting to 
call the Franks by their old name of Sicambri, as in the famous address of St. 
Remi to Hlodowig : " Mitis depone colla, Sicamber ; adora quod incendisti, in- 
cende quod adorasti." Greg. Turr., ii, 31 ; and in the speech of Venantius For- 
tunatus to King Charibert : " Cum suis progenitus clara de gente Sygamber," 
vi, 4. 

4 For early English arms, see Wright, The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon. 

5 Dr. Latham thinks that Kent was largely colonized by Franks. — English 
Language, i, page 178. Lappenberg believes that the Saxons were accompa- 
nied by large numbers of Friesians and Franks. The Welshman, Llywarc Hen, 
uses Frank as an equivalent for Saxon. 



78 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

Flevo and the North Sea, through what is now called 
Holland proper, including the Zeeland islands, down to 
the Scheldt, which country they held in common with 
the Batavi and Cannenefati, with whom they were allied. 
Caesar makes no mention of them, 1 but Pliny, referring to 
the people that lived along the lower Rhine, distinguishes 
even between Frisii and Frisiavoni? the latter dwelling 
more eastward, between the Yssel and the Weser. They 
never spread far inland, but always coasting northward, 
they had their colonies even as far as Lymfiord in Den- 
mark, and the islands of Funen and Seeland, which district 
is frequently called Frisia minor by the older historians 
of Denmark. 3 Like the Franks, they were of Teutonic 
stock, and the name of Frisa or Fresa, as they called them- 
selves, means, at the same time, " daring, independent, and 
free." The present Friesians still pride themselves upon 
their ancestors never having been conquered by the Ro- 
mans, but only nominally made tributary by Drusus, to 
the extent of paying a tax of ox-hides, 4 until the exactions 
of Olennius, who, demanding that all the hides should be 
of a superior quality, drove them to revolt in 28 A. D., 
which resulted in the defeat of Lucius Apronius. About 
the year 57 a body of Friesians took possession of lands 
reserved for the Roman soldiers, and instead of remov- 
ing, at the threat of the Roman governor, they sent 
their chiefs to Rome to obtain imperial sanction for 
their occupancy. Tacitus tells us 5 how these chiefs, 
whom he calls Verritus 6 and Malotrix, excited the amuse- 
ment and admiration of the people by taking, unasked, 
their seats among the senators in Pompey's theatre, when 
they heard that strangers from nations distinguished for 
their bravery and friendship to the Romans Avere admit- 

1 In speaking of the tribes that dwelt near the waters of the Rhine, Caesar 
gives no names, but only refers to them in general. " Rhenus, ubi Oceano ap- 
propinquat, in plures diffluit partes, multis ingentibusque insulis effectis, qua- 
rum pars magna a feris barbarisque nationibus incolitur, eu quibus sunt, qui 
piscibus atque ovis avium vivere existimantur, multisque capitibus in Oceanum 
influit. — Caesar, De Bell. Gall., iv, 10. 

2 In Rheno ipso .... nobilissima Batavorum insula et Cannenefatium et 
aliae Frisiorum, Chaucorum, Frisiavonum .... quae sternuntur inter Helinium 
ac Flevum. — Plinius, iv, 15. 

8 Hos a Frisonum gente conditos, nominis et linguae societas testimonio 
est. — Saxo. Gramm., p. 260. 

4 Tributum .... Frisiis, transrhenano populi. . . . Drusus jusserat mo- 
dicum, pro angustia rerum, ut in usus militares coria bourn penderent. — Tacitus, 
Annal., iv, 72. 

6 Tacitus, Annal., xiii. 

6 Gerrit is still a Dutch and Friesian name. G=W=V. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 79 

ted to that privilege. In the third century they made 
alliance with the Chauci, a kindred race living- east 
of them, between the Ems and the Weser, and with these 
formed a strong confederacy in all the territory north of 
that occupied by the Salian Franks, to whom they yield- 
ed the southern part of Holland, comprised between the 
Rhine and the Scheldt, as an outlet for the latter to the 
sea. 

Neither Cassar, nor Strabo, nor Pliny, nor Tacitus 
mention the name of Saxon. Ptolemy is the first who 
uses it, as that of a small tribe which, in his time (the sec- 
ond century), dwelt in Northern Germany, between the 
Eider, the Trave, and the Elbe, and upon some of the ad- 
jacent islands. 1 The name seems to be derived from the 
words sax , saex, seax, scex, sex, or saks y in all of which 
forms it appears in Anglo-Saxon, and means " a knife, a 
flint knife, a long knife, a short sword " ; handsax, " a dag- 

fer;" Seaxa, Seacsa, "a Saxon." 2 It was therefore at 
rst probably an epithet, before it became the name of a 
powerful confederation. The long knife is still a terrible 
national weapon among the Friesians. Even in late wars, 
Friesian regiments have been known to trust to it rather 
than to the bayonet. Among bullies and ruffians, the 
knife still holds the place that the fist does among boxers ; 
and, as among the latter, bloody encounters occasionally 
take place with no other motive than to see who is " the 
better man," aiming only at the face, just as in certain 
North German universities, where the barbarous practice, 
with rapier instead of knife, is still kept up among the 
students in spite of the most earnest endeavors of the 
authorities to suppress it. The etymology of the name 
appears, therefore, well established. The small tribe men- 
tioned by Ptolemy gradually extended, and already at 
an early date comprised many others, among them the 
Chauci, the Angrivarii, the Chamavi, and also the Che- 
rusci, who, in the year 9, under their chief Arminius, 

1 4<pe£rjs 8e (perk, robs Kavxovs) 4irl rbv ai>xeva rr/s Ki/xfiptKr)S x^P^o^Cov 
2a£oves .... fierh 8h robs "Za^ovas curb rod xaAoucrot; rrora/AOv, . . . (papodeiyvl. — 
Ptolem., Geograpkia, lib. iii. 

The geographer of Ravenna says, " confinalis Danise est patria quae nomi- 
natur Saxonia" Orosius speaks of the Saxons, "gentem Oceani in litoribus et 
paludibus inviis sitam." 

2 Erat autem illis diebus Saxonibus magnorum cultellorum usus, quitus, 
usque hodie Angli (id est Kn<^o- Sax ones) utuntur, morem gentis antiquee sec- 
tantes .... cultella nostra sahs dicuntur. — Witech. Corbej., p. 3. Nimed eure 
saxes (id est, cultellos vestros de siconibus vestris deducite). — Nennius, c. 48. 



80 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

defeated the army of Quintilius Varus, consisting of more 
than three legions. Eutropius, who wrote in the fourth 
century, mentions that, united with the Franks, the Sax- 
ons had become formidable against the Roman frontier. 1 
They then already spread from the Ems to the Elbe, 
through what is now Westphalia, Brunswick, and Hano- 
ver, along the territory occupied by the Friesians and the 
Salian Franks, with whom they often acted in concert. 
Still their exploits were mainly at sea, and in these the 
Chauci, who dwelt along the coast, and were of the same 
race and language as the Friesians, took the greater part. 
A special Roman fleet was appointed against them, in 
spite of which their raids and depredations on the British 
coast were so constant and effective as to require its be- 
ing placed, as we have seen, under the special surveillance 
of a Roman officer of state. Toward the end of the fourth 
century, Frank and Saxon expeditions, some large, some 
small, greatly disturbed both Britain and Gaul, and be- 
came the dread of the peaceful inhabitants of these coun- 
tries. More than any other, the Saxons were feared. 2 
Quite a large expedition of the latter was driven back by 
Valentianus across the Frankish frontier. 3 In the early 
part of the fifth century, some Saxon tribes, coming by 
sea, took possession of the coast of what is now Norman- 
dy, and founded a permanent settlement near Bayeux, 4 
while some others settled as far south as the mouth of the 
Loire, which latter, however, were soon absorbed in the 
subsequent Frankish empire. In the fifth and sixth centu- 
ries, while the Franks accomplished the conquest of Gaul, 
the Saxons accomplished the conquest of Britain. Ro- 
man power disappeared forever from both countries, and 
Frank and Saxon interests, henceforth divided, became 
vested, the one in France and the other in England. 
Those Saxon tribes that lived too far inland to take part 
in maritime expeditions, fought with the Thuringians and 
the Langobardians in Italy, attacked the Upper Rhine, 

1 Carausius apud Bononiam per tractum Belgicae et Armoricse pacandum 
mare accepisset, quod Franci et Saxones infestabant. — Eutrop., ix, 13. 

2 Prse ceteris hostibus Saxones timentur ut repentini. — Ammian. Marcellin. 
xxviii, 2. 

3 Valentianus Saxones, gentem en Oceani litoribus et paludibus inviis 
sitam, virtute et agililate terribilem, periculosam Romanis finibus, eruptio- 
nem magna mole meditantes, en ipsis Francorum finibus oppressit. — Orosius, 

vii ' 5 2 - 

4 We there find, afterward, the Saxones Bajocassini, mentioned by Gregory 

of Tours, v, 27 and x. See pages 207, 208. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 8 1 

and extended the scene of their action even into France, 1 
until at last Charlemagne, after one of the most sangui- 
nary wars recorded in history, and which the Saxons kept 
up for over thirty years (772-804 A. D.), under their leader, 
Wittekind, destroyed their aggressive power, and forced 
them to accept Christianity. 

Although the Angles were those whose invasion of 
Britain was by far the largest and most formidable, the 
notices we find of them as a people on the continent are 
extremely limited. Tacitus mentions them only incident- 
ally, with some other tribes, in referring to certain relig- 
ious rites that were common to them. 2 Ptolemy places 
them to the northeast of the Suevi and Langobardi in the 
middle Elbe, 3 that is, among the Hermunduri, who them- 
selves were a branch of the Chatti or Friesians that dwelt 
on the right bank of the Saal, whence they spread east- 
ward, through what is now Brunswick and Hanover, to 
the Elbe, into modern Mecklenburg, near the Varini, and 
from there to the northwest, into Holstein, where they 
met again with the colonies of their original stock, the 
Friesians. It is evidently from these parts and the lower 
Elbe that the famous expedition sailed forth which car- 
ried the Angles, under Ida, to Britain, leaving, like the 
Saxons, those that dwelt too far inland behind on the con- 
tinent, where the latter formed a new league with the 
Varini, on the territory which these occupied with the 
Hermunduri, unless they were the very Hermunduri 
themselves, or a branch thereof, as is by some believed, 

1 Post haec Saxones, qui cum Langobardis in Italiam venerant, iterum pro- 
rumpunt in Gallias. — Greg. Turr., iv, 43. 

2 Contra Langobardos paucitas nobilitat : plurimis ac valentissimis nationi- 
bus cincti, non per obsequium sed prceliis et periclitando tuti sunt. Reudigni 
deinde, et Aviones, et Angli, et Varini, et Eudoses, et Suardones, et Nuithones, 
fluminibus aut silvis muniuntur : nee quidquam notabile in singulis, nisi quod 
in commune Herthum, id est, Terram matrem colunt, eamque intervenire rebus 
hominum, invehi populis, arbitrantur. Est in insula Oceani Castum nemus, 
dicatumque in eo vehiculum, veste contectum, attingere uni sacerdoti conces- 
sum. Is adesse penetrali deam intelligit, vectamque bobus feminis multa cum 
veneratione prosequitur. Lseti tunc dies, festa loca, qusecumque adventu hos- 
pitioque dignatur. Non bella ineunt, non arma sumunt, clausum omne ferrum ; 
pax et quies tunc tantum nota, tunc tantum amata, donee idem sacerdos satia- 
tam conversatione mortalium deam templo reddat ; mox vehiculum et vestes, 
et, si credere velis, numen ipsum secreto lacu abluitur. Servi ministrant, quos 
statim idem lacus haurit. Arcanus hinc terror, sanctaque ignorantia, quid sit 
id, quod tantum perituri vident. — Tacitus, De Mor. Germ., 40. 

* TcDj/ 5c 'Euros Kal fieaoyeiav idvwv fi.iyiffra fxiv io~ri r6 re rwv ^owfifiwv rup 
*Ayy€t\oiv, 0% eltfiv hvaroXiKdyrcpoi rwv AayyofidpSwv, avarelvovres vpbs ras frpKrovs 
nexpi tG>v fxzffvv rod y A\j8tos irorafjiov. — Ptolem., Geographic lib. lii. 



$2 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

since, after the fifth century, the name of Hermunduri 
disappears, and that in their place we find only the Torin- 
gi, Thoringi, or Tkuringi, which included both Angli and 
Varini, as appears from the " heading " of a set of laws 
dating from the eighth century. 1 

As to the origin of the name, which Bede and others 
who have copied him derives from Angidus, which he 
places on the Danish peninsula, it must be observed that, 
at the time he wrote, there was, and that even now there 
is, a portion of the Duchy of Sleswick called Anglen, or 
the Corner. It is really what its name denotes, a triangle 
of irregular shape, formed by the She, the firth of Flens- 
borg, and a line drawn from the latter place to Sleswick; 
but its area is less than that of an American county, and 
therefore can not possibly have supplied a population as 
large as that of the Angles who went to England. That 
there were Angles in these parts when Ida was getting 
up his expedition on the lower Elbe is quite likely ; but 
the bulk of the nation lived farther inland, where they 
were noticed by Tacitus, and where, as early as in the sec- 
ond century, Ptolemy speaks of them as Angli, dwelling 
on the middle Elbe, near the Langobardi and Suevi, 2 in 
that part of the country where Magdeburg is now situ- 
ated ; and therefore, whatever may be the origin of the 
name, it is not derived from the Angidus of Sleswick. 
The peninsula was at all times Danish, and so of course 
were its names. In old ## Danish chronicles the name oc- 
curs as Angr, s Avngull, Ongull. Saxo-Grammaticus writes 
Angid? and Nennius calls it Oc/igul. 5 Alfred, in translat- 
ing Bede, writes both Angel and Engel. In Thuringen 
there is an Engelin and an Englide, 6 besides which there is 

1 Incipit lex Angliorum et Werinorum hoc est Thuringorum. 

2 The " Traveler's Song," which is of no historical authority, but may be 
regarded as a collection of ancient traditions, contains a legend of Offa, the 
mythical ancestor of the Mercian kings, which implies a belief that the Angles 
had gained a western outlet for their fleets before they undertook their migra- 
tion. The glee-man is enumerating the tribes about the mouth of the Eider, 
which he calls "the monsters' gate," from some forgotten story of the sea. 
" Offa in boyhood won the greatest of kingdoms, and none of such age ever 
gained in battle a greater dominion with his single sword : his marches he 
widened toward the Myrgings by Fifel-dor : and there in the land, as Offa had 
won it, thenceforth continued the Angles and Sueves" — Traveler's Song, 84, 98. 
Fifel-dor means " the gate of monsters." The word Eider, itself, is said to be 
contracted from Egi-dor, " the gate of dread." 

3 Angr Sinus v. lingula tarn terras quam maris, locus scilicet angustus. — Biorn. 

4 Saxo-Grammaticus, p. 5. 6 Nennius, xxxvi. 

6 It is a very significant fact that in mediaeval times the district south of 
Heidelberg was called the Angla-Degan. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 83 

an Island of Anglen, and a district of that name on the 
mainland, now inhabited by a Friesian population. The 
similarity between Angnlus and Angli is therefore entirely 
fortuitous, and we can easily see how the resemblance, 
combined with the contiguity of the Anglen with the 
Saxon frontier, might mislead even so good a writer as 
Bede into the notion that he had found the country of 
the Angles in what he called the Angiilus of Sleswick. 

As the invasion of Britain took place by sea, we must 
look for the invaders among the maritime populations ; 
that is, among those that dwelt along the coasts, from the 
Scheldt up to the Weser and the Elbe, and on the main 
rivers at some distance inland. An old historian has told 
us that " many and frequent were the expeditions from the 
continent, and many were the lords that strove against 
each other in the regions of East Anglia and Mercia ; 
and thereby arose unnumbered wars, but the names of the 
chieftains remain unknown, by reason of their very multi- 
tude." * It has been thought that some of these invading 
bands may have belonged to races unconnected with the 
three great kindreds — Angles, Saxons, and Friesians — to 
whom the conquest is in the main assigned. A share in 
the enterprise is claimed for every nation between the 
Rhine and the Vistula — for the Franks and Lombards, the 
Jutes and Danes, the Wends from Riigen, and the Heruli 
of the eastern forests. To this cause it has even been 
proposed to ascribe the weakness of the later Angles, 
" when, fleeing before the invading Northmen, the sons 
yielded the dominion of the land which their valiant fore- 
fathers had conquered." 2 There is nothing unreasonable 
in supposing that isolated bands of adventurers from 
many countries may have occupied portions of the British 
coast, and may have even founded communities independ- 
ent for a time of the Anglian or Saxon states in their 
neighborhood. But if so, the traces of such occupancy 
are lost, while those of the Angles, the Saxons, the Frie- 
sians, and their kindred the Dutch or Franks, are found 
everywhere throughout the British Isles. 

The character of all these people displayed the quali- 
ties of fearless, active, and successful pirates. Orosius 
calls them dreadful for their courage and agility, 3 and the 
Emperor Julian, who had lived among barbarians, and 

1 Henr. Huntingd., Hist., ii, 17. 2 Lappenberg, Hist. Eng., i, c. 6. 

3 Orosius, vii, c. 32. 



84 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

who had fought with some of these tribes, speaks of them 
as distinguished for their vehemence and valor. 1 Zosi- 
mus, their contemporary, expresses the general feeling of 
his age when he ranks them as superior to others in ener- 
gy, strength, and warlike fortitude. 2 Their ferocious 
qualities were cultivated by the habit of indiscriminate 
depredation. It was from the cruelty and destructive- 
ness, as well as from the suddenness of their incursions, 
that they were dreaded more than any other people. Re- 
gardless of danger, they launched their predatory ves- 
sels and suffered the wind to blow them to any foreign 
coast, indifferent whether the result was unresisted depre- 
dations or mortal conflict. Such was their cupidity, or 
their brutal hardihood, that they often preferred embark- 
ing in the tempest, which might shipwreck them, because 
at such a season their victims would be more unguarded. 3 
Inland provinces were not protected from their invasions. 
From ignorance, necessity, or policy, they traversed the 
ocean in boats framed of osier, and covered with skins 
sewed together ; 4 and such was their skill, or their prodi- 
gality of life, that in these they sported in the tempests of 
the German Ocean. For vessels of this kind no coast was 
too shallow, no river too small ; they dared to ascend the 
streams for eighty or a hundred miles, and if other plun- 
der invited, or danger pressed, they carried their boats 
from one river to another, and thus escaped with facility 
from the most superior foe. 5 

But of all these people, those that went by the name 
of Saxons were the most dreaded. A letter which a Ro- 
man provincial, Sidonius Apollinaris, wrote in warning to 
a friend who had embarked as an officer in the Channel 
fleet, which was " looking out for the pirate-boats of the 
Saxons," gives us a glimpse of these freebooters as they 
appeared to the civilized world of the fifth century. 
" When you see their rowers," says Sidonius, "you may 
make up your mind that every one of them is an arch- 
pirate, with such wonderful unanimity do all of them 
at once command, obey, teach, and learn their business of 
brigandage. This is why I have to warn you to be more 

1 Julian, Imp. Orat. de laud. Const., p. 116. 

2 Zosimus, iii, p. 147, ed. Ox. 

3 Amm. Marcell., xxviii, c. 3. 

4 Est parva scapha ex vimine facta, quae contexta crudo corio genus navigii 
prsebet. — Isidorus, Orig., xix, c. 1. 

6 Du Bos., 149 ; Gibbon, 524. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: 85 

than ever on your guard in this warfare. Your foe is of 
all foes the fiercest. He attacks unexpectedly ; if you ex- 
pect him, he makes his escape; he despises those who 
seek to block his path ; he overthrows those who are off 
their guard ; he cuts off any enemy whom he follows ; 
while for himself, he never fails to escape when he is 
forced to fly. And, more than this, to these men a ship- 
wreck is a school of seamanship rather than a matter of 
dread. They know the dangers of the deep like men 
who are every day in contact with them. For, since a 
storm throws those whom they wish to attack off their 
guard, while it hinders their own coming onset from be- 
ing seen from afar, they gladly risk themselves in the 
midst of wrecks and sea-beaten rocks, in the hope of mak- 
ing profit out of every tempest." 1 

The picture is one of men who were not merely greedy 
freebooters, but finished seamen, and who had learned, 
barbarians as they were, how to command and how to 
obey in their school of war. But it was not the daring 
or the pillage of the Saxons that spread terror along the 
Channel so much as their cruelty. It was by this that the 
Roman provincials distinguished them from the rest of 
the German races who were attacking the empire ; for, 
while men noted in the Frank his want of faith, in the 
Alan his greed, in the Hun his shamelessness, in the Ge- 
pid an utter absence of any trace of civilization, what 
they noted in the Saxon was his savage cruelty. 2 It was 
this ruthlessness that made their descents on the coasts of 
the Channel so terrible to the provincials. The main aim 
of these pirate raids, as of the pirate raids from the north 
hundreds of years later, was man-hunting — the carrying 
off of men, women, and children into slavery. But the 
slave-hunting of the Saxons had features of peculiar hor- 
ror. " Before they raise their anchor, and set sail from 
the hostile continent for their own homeland, their wont, 
when they are on the eve of returning, is to slay, by long 
and painful tortures, one man in every ten of those they 
have taken, in compliance with a religious use, which is 
even more lamentable than superstitious; and for this 
purpose to gather the whole crowd of doomed men to- 
gether, and temper the injustice of their fate by the mock 
justice of casting lots for the victims. Though such a rite 

1 Sidonius Apollinaris, viii, c. 6. 

2 Gens Saxonum fera est, Francorum infidelis, Gepidarum inhumana, Chu- 
norum impudica, etc. — Salvian, De Gubernatione Dei, iv, 14. 



86 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

is not so much a sacrifice that cleanses as a sacrilege that 
defiles them, the doers of this deed of blood deem it a 
part of their religion rather to torture their captives than 
to take ransom for them." 1 

Such is the portrait which historians give of these 
people — Frank, Friesians, and Saxons, all alike — and little 
pleasing, it must be confessed, for those who like to re- 
vere them as their ancestors. The ferocity of their char- 
acter would seem to suit better the dark and melancholy 
physiognomies of the most savage of our Indians than the 
fair, pleasing, and blue-eyed countenances by which they 
are described. 2 But, though nature had gifted them with 
the germs of these amiable qualities, which have become 
the national character of their descendants, their savage 
customs, their violent passions and barbarous training, 
smothered for the time being all the good qualities of 
which they were naturally possessed. 

These, however, must not be overlooked. Under the 
shocking barbarism of all these northern tribes, which con- 
trasted so fearfully with Roman culture and civilization, 
there were noble dispositions, unknown to the Roman 
world, and destined to produce, in time, high-minded na- 
tions out of the ruins of these. In the first place, a cer- 
tain earnestness in all their undertakings leads them out 
of idle sentiments into grave and serious ones. They live 
solitary, each family by itself, near the spring or the wood 
which has taken their fancy ; they must have independ- 
ence and free air. They have no taste for luxury or vo- 
luptuousness ; all the recreation they indulge in is hunt- 
ing and fishing, and a dance among naked swords. Brutal 
intoxication and perilous wagers are their weakest points ; 
they seek their pleasures in all that is adventure — luck 
and strong excitement. In everything else, in rude and 
masculine instincts, they are men. Each in his own home, 
on his own land, and in his own hut, is master of himself, 
without any form of shackle or restraint. In all great 
meetings of his tribe he gives his vote in arms ; he makes 

1 J. R. Green, The Making of England. Mos est remeaturis decimum 
quemque captorum per sequales et cruciarias poenas, plus ob hoc tristi quam su- 
perstitioso ritu, necare ; superque collectam turbam periturorum, mortis iniqui- 
tatem sortis asquitate dispergere. Talibus eligunt votis, victimis solvunt ; et 
per hujusmodi non tam sacrificia purgati quam sacrilegia polluti, religiosum pu- 
tant caedis infaustae perpetratores de capite captivo magis exigere tormenta 
quam pretia. The " cruciarias poenas," here referred to, which have been 
translated by " crucifixion," were more probably something like the " spread 
eagle " of the later Northmen. 2 Truces et coerulei oculi. — Tacitus. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Sj 

his own alliance, and, having chosen his chief, he forgets 
himself in him, assigns to him his own glory, and serves 
him to the death. He who returns from battle without 
his chief is infamous as long as he lives. 1 In Homer the 
warrior often gives way, and is not blamed if he flies ; in 
Germany the coward is drowned in the mud, under a 
hurdle. Through all outbreaks of primitive brutality, 
gleams obscurely the grand idea of duty, which, miscon- 
ceived as it often was, was not the less a sense of self- 
restraint, in view of some great end. The same sense 
of honor which binds him to his chief he keeps up toward 
women. He marries but one, and keeps faith with her. 
Among all these rude tribes the adulterer was punished 
by death. The wife, on entering her husband's home, be- 
comes the companion of his labors and his perils, and will 
dare and suffer as much as he ; but while his companion 
in war, she is but his slave in peace. She attends to all 
the indoor and outdoor work, and toils and labors day 
and night, while to him she is but a trusty servant and the 
mother of the young heroes who are to perpetuate the 
name and prowess of their father. Yet this kind of half- 
naked brute, who lies all day by his fireside when not en- 
gaged in war, in plunder, or in sports, sluggish and dirty, 
always eating and drinking, 2 whose rusty faculties can not 
shape his thoughts to anything but matter, catches occa- 
sional glimpses of the sublime in his troubled dreams. 
He can not see it, but he simply feels it ; the germ of re- 
ligion is already there, but has as yet no form. What he 
designates by divine names, is something terrible and 
grand which floats throughout all nature, a mysterious 
infinity which the sense can not touch, but which rever- 
ence alone can appreciate ; and when, later on, the legends 
define and alter this vague divination of natural powers, 
an idea remains at the bottom of this chaos of giant- 
dreams — that the world is a warfare, and heroism the 
greatest excellence. 8 

1 Jam vero infame in omnem vitam ac probrosum, superstitem principi suo 
ex acie recessisse. — Tacitus, De moribus Germanorum, xiv. They have but one 
kind of show, and they use it at every gathering. Naked lads, who know the 
game, leap among swords and in front of spears. Practice gives cleverness, and 
cleverness, grace : but it is not a trade, or a thing done for hire ; however ven- 
turesome the sport, their only payment is the delight of the crowd. — Ibid., xxiv. 

2 In omni domo, nudi et sordidi. . . . Diem noctemque continuare potan- 
do, nulle proborum. . . . Plus per otium transigunt, dediti somno, ciboque ; 
totos dies juxta focum atque ignem agunt. — Tacitus, De moribus Germanorum, 
passim. 3 H. A. Taine, Histoire de la Litterature Anglaise. 



88 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

Having thus outlined the interior structure of the 
race, we must next consider its surroundings. Man is 
not alone in the world; nature surrounds him, and his 
fellow-men surround him. Influences out of his control 
insensibly shape his ways and destinies, and physical and 
social circumstances may change and modify, nay, alter 
entirely, the original tendencies and character of any race, 
of any nation. Many are the influences which thus may 
affect the existence of a people, but none more so than 
that of climate. Though we can follow but obscurely the 
Aryan peoples from their common fatherland to their final 
countries, we can yet assert that the profound differences 
which are manifest between the Teutonic races on the one 
side, and the Greek and Latin on the other, arise, for the 
most part, from the difference between the countries in 
which they settled ; some in cold, misty, unproductive 
lands, struggling for a wretched existence in black, marshy 
forests, or on the shores of a wild ocean, caged in by 
melancholy or violent sensations, prone to drunkenness 
and gluttony, bent on a fighting, blood-spilling life ; others, 
again, within a lovely landscape, where life is easy, on a 
bright, cheerful sea-coast, enticed to friendly intercourse 
and commerce, exempt from gross cravings of the stom- 
ach, inclined from the beginning to social ways, to a set- 
tled organization of the state, to feelings and dispositions 
such as develop the art of oratory, the talent for enjoy- 
ment, the inventions of science, letters, and arts. Thus 
considered, we will be better able to account for the differ- 
ence of races, their mode of existence, their thoughts, their 
acts, and consequently their language. A language, in 
itself, is never more than an abstract thing ; the complete 
thing is the man who acts, the man, corporeal and visible, 
who eats, .drinks, walks, fights, and works. If we wish to 
know and well understand a nation, we must see its men 
in their workshops, in their offices, in their fields ; with 
their sky and earth, their homes, their dress, their meals ; 
their luxuries, their wants ; their toils, their recreations ; 
as we do when, arriving in foreign lands, we remark faces 
and motions, roads and inns, dress and occupations — a 
gentleman taking his walk, a lady in her carriage, labor- 
ers at work, soldiers training, a procession in the streets, 
and many other details, all expressive of the national life 
and customs of those whom we are visiting and studying. 
Even so with nations that lived in times that have gone 
by. In studying them, our great care should be to sup- 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 89 

ply as much as possible the want of present, personal, and 
direct observation, by sound imagination, based on what 
remains of authentic information. Thus we may succeed 
in bringing-, to some extent at least, the past within the 
present, and enable ourselves, on matters of the past, to 
bear a proper judgment. To judge anything we must 
have it before us, if not in reality, at least in imagination ; 
there is no experience in respect to what is absent. Doubt- 
less this reconstruction is always incomplete, and there- 
fore it can produce only incomplete judgments ; but to 
that we must be reconciled. It is better to have an im- 
perfect knowledge than a futile or false one ; and there is 
no other means of acquainting ourselves approximately 
with the events of other days than to see approximately 
the men of those days. Thus we may get an idea of what 
can have been their wants, their acts, their thoughts, and 
therefore their language. It will reveal to us the nature 
and extent of their vocabulary, and the degree of atten- 
tion bestowed on the art of putting words together. For 
men will speak and must speak, whatever their condition, 
however low may be the state of their civilization ; and 
as they know the names of things from imitation only, so 
they construct the sentence in the way they have heard it 
done by others. Thus even the most barbarous tribes 
have a special and habitual mode of speaking, which ex- 
hibits the nature and grammar of each particular dia- 
lect ; and it is by this means especially that philologists 
search and trace the history of languages, and of the 
people that speak or have spoken them, to their very 
origin. 

The language spoken by all the tribes that, in the fifth 
and sixth centuries, took part in the conquest of Britain, 
was virtually the same, but broken up into a great variety 
of dialects, and belonged to what is known as the Gothic 
stock of languages. In the reign of Valens, the Goths, 
when pressed by intestine wars, and by the movements of 
the Huns, were assisted by that emperor, from whom they 
obtained land in the Roman province of Mcesia. Hence 
the term Mceso-Gothic, which is the name given to the 
only Gothic dialect of which a specimen has been pre- 
served. It was the language spoken by the conquerors 
of ancient Rome ; by the subjects of Hermanric, Alaric, 
Theodoric, Euric, Athanaric, and Totila; and the Bible, 
translated into their language about the year 365, by 
their bishop, Vulfila or Wulfila, now generally written 
8 



go 



ORIGINS OP THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



Ulphilas, is the earliest sample yet discovered of any 
Gothic tongue. 1 Although the dialect in which the trans- 
lation is made is vastly different from that of later Teuton- 
ic nations, it serves for a standard by which subsequent 
changes may be detected and estimated, and throw, as 
such, much light on the kindred languages of Germany. 
As a specimen of this dialect we give the following pas- 
sage from St. Luke, which we have already seen in the 
current Celtic dialects : 

Mceso-Gothic. 
Aivaggeljo ]>airh Lukan, Kapitel 7, v. 11-17. 

11. Jah var]? in famma afardaga, iddja in baurg namnida 
Naen ; jah mid iddjedun imma siponjos is ganohai jah mana- 
geins filu. 

12. Bi|?eh fan nehva vas daura Jnzos baurgs, )>aruh sai, ut bau- 
rans vas naus, sunus ainaha ai]>ein seinai, jah si silbo vidovo, jah 
rnanagei fizos baurgs ganoha mif> izai. 

13. Jah gasaihvands J?o frauja Iesus infeinoda du izai jah qa]> 
du izai : ni gret ! 

14. Jah duatgaggands attaitok hvilftrjom ; ip pai bairandans 
gastopun ; jah qaj> : juggalaud, du Jms qi]>a : urreis ! 

15. Jah ussat sa naus jah dugann rodjan. Jah atgaf ina 
aifein is. 

16. Dissat J>an allans agis, jah mikilidedun gnp, qtyandans 
]>atei praufetus mikils urrais in unsis, jah patei gaveisoda gu}> 
manageins seinaizos. 

17. Jah usiddja ]>ata vaurd and alia Iudaia bi ina jah and 
allans bisitands. 2 

1 Of his translation an imperfect manuscript, containing fragments of the 
four gospels, was found in 1 597, in the monastery of Werden, in Germany. 
Some passages of the same version have been recovered at a later period. Of 
these relics a magnificent copy has been made, which is preserved in the Royal 
Library of Upsal. It is of a quarto size, and written on vellum, the leaves of 
which are stained with a violet color, and on this ground the letters, which are 
all uncial or capitals, are painted in silver, except the initials, which are gold. 
The name of Codex Argenteus, by which this document is generally known, 
is derived from its being bound in silver, and not from its silver lettering. 

2 To facilitate comparison, we place here the authorized English version 
of the same passage : 

11. And it came to pass the day after, that he went into a city called Nain ; 
and many of his disciples went with him, and much people. 

12. Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a 
dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow : and 
much people of the city was with her. 

13. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto 
her, Weep not. 

14. And he came and touched the bier ; and they that bare him stood still. 
And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 91 

As the Gothic population was very numerous, and 
divided into many tribes, we may well suppose that their 
language was spoken in many various dialects, though 
the Mceso-Gothic alone has thus far been discovered. 
Connected with this great stock of dialects there probably 
already existed a vast number of sister dialects which now 
may be viewed in two distinct groups — the Teutonic and 
the Scandinavian — each of which has a character of its own, 
in addition to the common character by which they are 
allied, and distinguished from tongues belonging to other 
stocks. The Teutonic group again appears in two sub- 
divisions — the High Dutch and the Low Dutch, and 
though these differ less from each other than from the 
Scandinavian, each has nevertheless its own peculiar feat- 
ures. The High Dutch, as represented in the language 
of the Scripture paraphrasts, Otfried and Notker, was 
spoken from the eighth to the twelfth century in Suabia, 
Bavaria, and Franconia, and is known by the name of Old 
High Dutch (Alt-Hoch-Deutsch, called also Francic), to 
distinguish it from the Middle High Dutch (Mittel-Hoch- 
Deutsch), which was current in southern and eastern Ger- 
many from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, and was 
the language in which was written the Epic of the Nibe- 
lungen. The Modern or New High Dutch originated in 
the latter part of the fifteenth century, in the imperial 
chancery of Saxony, and was first used as a literary lan- 
guage by Luther ; and mainly through his writings and 
those of the Reformation, it became and remains the lead- 
ing dialect in Germany. As an artificial language, it 
bears the same relation to the many popular dialects from 
which it is derived as the Latin does to the many Latian 
dialects out of which arose the imperial language of Rome. 
Some of the old Teutonic dialects, still spoken in various 
parts of Germany, have even now their literature, and, 
both spoken and written, they are in many instances so 
different from each other as to be unintelligible, not only 
to people of different districts, but even to those whose 
speech is modern German, which, in its present form, is 
the national language of all German countries. 

15. And lie that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered 
him to his mother. 

16. And there came a fear on all : and they glorified God, saying, That a 
great prophet is risen up among us ; and, that God hath visited his people. 

17. And this rumor of him went forth throughout all Judea, and through- 
out all the region round about. 



9 2 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



As the High Dutch forms of language prevailed in 
the south and southeast of Germany, so the Low Dutch 
found its way, at a very early period, and much less al- 
tered, north and west along the Baltic and the German 
Ocean, and was spoken by all the Teutonic tribes dwelling 
within this seaboard boundary and a line drawn east from 
Flanders to the middle Elbe, a tract of country frequently 
referred to by old writers as Saxland, where the same lan- 
guage was current in various dialects, more or less differ- 
ing from each other, but not so much as not to be general- 
ly understood. In course of time all these dialects set- 
tled into four groups — the Platt-Deutsch, Friesic, Dutch, 
and Flemish — which all resemble each other very closely, 
and may be compared to different hues of the same color, 
with Platt-Deutsch at one end, Flemish at the other, and 
Dutch and Friesic in the center. Of these, the Dutch has 
retained the oldest forms, and become the national lan- 
guage of the Netherlands, while the others live alongside 
in the condition of secondary dialects — the Platt-Deutsch, 
spoken from the Ems to the Elbe, being much crowded 
by the literary and national language of Germany ; the 
Friesic, still current in the country districts of the present 
province of Friesland, and, in strongly differentiated dia- 
lects, along the sea-coast and the islands, gradually yield- 
ing before the literary and official Dutch of Holland ; 
while the Flemish, confined to a limited territory, exists 
under even greater disadvantages in the provinces of 
Flanders and South Brabant, in Belgium. Still, each of 
these dialects has its literature, and while the national 
language is current among all ranks of the community in 
Holland and west Friesland, yet the old popular dialects 
remain the home-speech of a vast number of people, es- 
pecially in the country and in the more remote districts. 

Among the earliest monuments of these dialects we 
find The Traveler s Song and the The Fight at Fimiesburg, 
which, referring as they do to Friesian matters, are proba- 
bly of Friesian origin, while the epic poem of Beowulf, 
whose scenes are laid among the Danes, is supposed to 
have been wrought among the Angles of Holstein ; * but 

1 While this is the general opinion, it is but just to say that some believe 
it to be the most important surviving monument of Anglo-Saxon poetry, and to 
date not later than the eighth century. Thorpe considers it merely the transla- 
tion of a Swedish poem, made in the eleventh century. One thing remarkable 
about this poem is that, though existing in Anglo-Saxon only, it makes no allu- 
sion to England whatsoever, from which it is inferred that the author lived be- 
fore the Saxon invasions, and that in its present form it is only a translation. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



93 



as of all these works we possess only Anglo-Saxon copies, 
much altered in form by Anglo-Saxon copyists, and par- 
tially or entirely rewritten perhaps at a later period, we 
can not judge correctly of the original form of language 
in which they were composed ; but in comparing them, 
as they now appear, with a translation of the Psalms, made 
in Holland in the time of Charlemagne, whence they take 
the name of Carolinian Psalms ? they seem to be only two 
dialects of the same language. Later on, in the tenth 
century, appears the Heliand {Heiland in Dutch, meaning 
"the Savior"), a sort of Gospel Harmony or Life of 
Christ, written in a dialect supposed to have belonged to 
parts about Essen, Cleves, and Miinster, in Westphalia. 
Its forms bear also a close resemblance to the old Friesian, 
Dutch, and Anglo-Saxon. 

The Scandinavian branch of the Gothic stock compre- 
hends the dialect of Scandinavia proper, that is : Sweden 
and Norway, the Danish Isles, Iceland, and the Faroe 
Islands. Each of these has its Sagas (Norse Sogur), some 
dating as far back as the ninth and tenth centuries. The 
Elder Edda, or Poetic Edda, as it is sometimes called, is 
among the earliest specimens of Scandinavian literature ; 
it was discovered about the year 1643, and is believed to 
belong to the ninth century. The Prose Edda, or Snorra 
Sturlusonar, is probably of the twelfth century. 

These three branches — High Dutch, Low Dutch, and 
Scandinavian — in all their dialectic divisions and subdi- 
visions, have certain features in common, owing to their 
common origin ; and correspond to three distinct groups 
of people, belonging to the same race, but differing in 
manners, customs, interests, and language, as they differ 
in geographical position. Where separated by the seas, 
the contrast is clear and well defined ; where no water- 
courses or mountain-ranges intervene, the difference is 
less marked, and the change more gradual along the line 
of national and political boundaries. Thus the High 
Dutch and the Low Dutch differ from each other less 
than either does from the Scandinavian ; while the Low 
Dutch, lying in the middle, forms, as it were, a sort of 
link between the two extremes. Viewing all these dia- 
lects in their leading forms, that is, in the national form 
of language, the following versions from St. Luke's narra- 

1 The best text of this translation is to be found in a Dutch literary periodi- 
cal called Taalkundig Magazyn. 



94 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



tive, Chapter VII, will exhibit the degree of resemblance 
and of difference that exists at present between the Ger- 
man, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish idioms: 



GERMAN. 

11. Unb e3 oegao fid) barnad), 
ba$ er in tint ©tabt mtt Harnett 
9km sing ; unb feiner Stinger gin- 
gen oiete mtt tfym, unb oiel $olti. 



12. %U er aoer nafje an baa 
©tabtt^or lam, ftet)e, ba trug man 
einen Sobten fjeraus, ber ein einiger 
@ot)n mar feiner Gutter; wnb fie 
toar etne 2Btttn>e, nnb otel 23olf3 and 
ber ©tabt gtng mit iljr. 

13. Unb ba fie ber $(Srr fa$e, 
jammerte ttjn berfetbtgen, unb forad) 
$u ifyr : SBetne ntd)t ! 

14. Unb trat tyn^n, nnb ritfyrete 
ben @arg an ; unb bte Srager (Ian* 
ben. Unb er fprad) : 3ungling, idj 
fage btr, ftefye auf ! 

15. Unb ber £obte ridjtete ftcfy 
auf, unb ftng an ju reben. Unb er 
gao tfm feiner Gutter. 

16. Unb e3 fam fie alte etne 
$urd)t an, unb prtefen ®£)tt, unb 
fprad)en : @3 ift ein grower tyxoptjtt 
unter un$ aufgeftanben, unb ©Dtt 
f)at fetn Soil fyeimgefucfyt. 

17. Unb biefe $ebe oon tfym er* 
fdjoll in ba^ gauge jiibifdje £anb, 
unb in atfe umltegenbe Sanber. 



DUTCH. 

n. En het geschiedde op 
den volgenden dag, dat hij ging 
naar eene stad, genaamd Nam, 
en met hem gin gen vele van 
zijne discipelen, en eene groote 
schare. 

12. En als hij de poort der 
stad genaakte, ziet daar, een 
doode werd uitgedragen, die een 
eeniggeboren zoon zijner moe- 
der was, en zij was weduwe, en 
eene groote schare van de stad 
was met haar. 

13. En de Heere, haar zien- 
de, werd innerlijk met ontferm^ 
ing over haar bewogen, en zeide 
tot haar : Ween niet. 

14. En hij ging toe, en raakte 
de baar aan ; (de dragers nu 
stonden stil) en hij zeide : 
Jongeling, ik zeg u, sta op ! 

15. En de doode zat over 
einde, en begon te spreken. 
En hij gaf hem aan zijne moe- 
der. 

16. En vreeze beving hen 
alien, en zij verheerlijkten God, 
zeggende : Een groot profeet 1 
is onder ons opgestaan, en God 
heeft zijn volk bezocht. 

17. En dit gerucht van hem 
ging uit in geheel Judea, en in 
al het omliggende land. 



DANISH. 

11. Dg bet oegar fig £)agen ber* 
efter, at |an gtl til en ©tab, font 
fyebte dlain, og ber gtf mange af 
fyans £>tfriple meb §mx og meget 
golf. 

12. 9ften ber f)an lorn neer tit 
@taben3 Port, fee, ba oleo en £)ob 



SWEDISH. 

11. ©a oegaf bet fig feban, att 
tjan gid uti ben ftaben, font Mas 
%lain ; odj meb tjonom gtngo mange 
$an$ Sarjungar, 0$ mpdet foil. 

12. S)a ^an nu font tntitt ftabs* 
porten, fi ba oars ber ut en bober, 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



95 



ubbaaren, font oar fin Sobers een* 
baarne ©on, og Jjun oar en @nfe ; 
og meget golf af ©taben gif nteb 
fyenbe. 

13. £>g ber £erren faae Ijenbe, 
onfebes fyan inberligen ooer fyenbe 
og fagbe ril fyenbe j grab iffe. 

14. Dg fyan traabte til og rortc 
oeb 23aaren, (men be, fom bare, 
fiobe ftille), og fyan fogbe ; bn nnge 
Stavl, jeg figer big, ftaa op ! 

15. Dg ben £)obe reifte fig op, 
og begsmte at tale ; og fyan gao fyans 
SSftober §am. 

16. Wltn en grogt betog Wit, og 
be prifebe ©ub og fagbe ; ber er en 
ftor $ropl)et opreift iblanbt 03, og 
(3)nb fyaoer befogt fit golf. 

17. Og benne Sale om Ijam fom 
ub i bet ganffe Snbeea og i alt bet 
omfrmgltggenbe £anb. 



fine mobers enbe fon, odj fjon toar 
enfa ; odj en ftor f)op folf af ftaben 
gicf meb fyenne. 

13. £>a £erren fag fyenne, ioar* 
funnabe §an fig oftoer fyenne, odj 
fabe till tymz : ®rat itfe. 

14. Ddj fyan gitf till, odj tog pa 
barena ; odj be, fom oaro, ftabnabe. 
Da fabe t)an t Sag fager big, unger 
man, \tatt nop. 

15. Del) ben bobe fatte fig npp, 
odj begonte tala ; ocfy §an fief fyonom 
fyans mober. 

16. Defy en rabbljage fom oftoer 
alia, ocfy be prifabe ©nb, faganbe : 
(En ftor $>ropfyet ar nppfommen 
ifylanb of, odfy @nb tyafioer foft fitt 
folf. 

17. Defy betta roftet om fyonom 
gicf ut oftoer allt Subiffa lanbet, ocfy 
all be tanb beromfring. 



It was from among the Low Dutch speaking tribes, 
from those that dwelt in " Saxland," and especially along 
the sea-coast and the rivers, there issued forth the piratical 
hordes which, after gaining for centuries, slowly but 
effectively, a foothold in Britain, invaded the island in 
overwhelming numbers during the fifth and sixth centu- 
ries, and possessed themselves of the best and most fertile 
lands in the country. How and when these invasions 
commenced is not exactly clear. Bede says it was in the 
reign of Marcianus and Valentinianus, A. D. 450 to 457, 
but he does not give the year. 1 Prosper Tyro says that 
about the year 441 Britian was finally subjected to the 
Saxon power ; 2 while Nennius specifies the year 447, as 
being during the consulate of Gratianus. 3 From these 
data, differing as they do in point of time, it is to be in- 
ferred that by the middle of the fifth century commenced, 
on a larger scale, the invasions of various Teutonic tribes, 
who, possessing themselves of different tracts of land, 
drove back the British population north and west, until, 
after a century of incessant struggle, they had achieved 
the conquest of the best parts of the island. Taking the 

1 Bede, c. 15. 3 Nennius, p. 62, 80. 

2 Chronicon ad Ann. Theodosii, xviii (441). 



96 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

year 449, therefore, as the correct time recorded by his- 
tory for the commencement of actual hostilities leading 
to the conquest, we must observe, from what we have 
seen already, that this date, ordinarily assigned also for 
the commencement of the Saxon colonization of Britain, is 
too late by at least a couple of centuries. Even in the 
time of Agricola, if not before, the Saxon piracy had be- 
gun. In the southeast of England a Saxon immigration 
seems to have been going on in silence during the entire 
period of Roman rule. The Roman legions stationed in 
Britain were composed mainly of Germans, which must 
have introduced a considerable German element into the 
population. Even before the time of Constantine there 
was a Litus Saxonicum, which extended from Bruncaster, 
in Norfolk, as far as Shoreham, in Sussex. Descents in 
large numbers were constantly made, and we learn from 
Ammianus Marcellinus that nearly a century before the 
date assigned by Bede for the supposed landing of Hen- 
gist and Horsa, London was taken by Saxon and Frank- 
ish invaders, who slew the Duke of Britain and the 
Count of the Saxon Shore. 1 

Leaving aside, therefore, the doubtful legend of Hen- 
gist and Horsa, the probability is that, during the late 
troubles of the Britons with the Scots and Picts, there 
was, in the absence of the Roman legions, a greater influx 

1 There are several concurrent indications that the district of Holderness 
was occupied by Teutonic settlers before the close of the Roman rule. Holder- 
ness is a fertile tract of some two hundred and fifty square miles, bounded on 
the north, east, and south by the sea, and the Humber, and on the west by the 
Wolds, which were probably a frontier of wooded and impenetrable hills. In 
this district Ptolemy places a people whom he calls the Uapicroi. Grimm has 
shown that the old German p is interchangeable in Latin with f the aspirated 
form of the same letter. This would lead us to identify the Ylapiaoi with the 
Frisii, or Friesians. In the same district Ptolemy places Petuaria, a name 
which can not be explained from Celtic sources, but which points undoubtedly 
to the Teutonic root ware, " inhabitants," which appears in Cantware, Wihtware 
and so many other names. Nor is this all, for Ptolemy gives us a third name 
in the district of Holderness, Gabrantov'icorum Sinus, which word contains the 
root vie, which was the appellation for " a bay " in the language of the people 
who, at a later period, descended in such numbers from the Friesian region. 
Moreover, the Friesian form of ham is um; and Holderness is the only part of 
England where this form occurs. Wright, " On the remains of a primitive peo- 
ple in the southeast of Yorkshire." — Essays, vol, i, p. I. Poulson, History of 
Holderness, vol. i, pp. 4-9. Procopius also speaks of Friesians in Britain. 
Bpirrlav 5e tV vt\<tov iQvt\ rpia iroXvavOpuTrSraTa exovffi, fiacriAevs re efs avruv 
eKiiarcp icpecrrriKep, bvSjxaTa 5e Keirat rois eQveffi tovtois 'AryyiXoi re Kal Qpiaffoves 
Kal oi Trj vf)<rcp 6fxu>vv/xoi Bplrrcoves. Toffa&TT) 8e fj r&rifie roov IQv&v rroXvavdpanrla 
(palvercu oZcra Sxrre ava irav £to$ Kara woWovs iydevSe /xeTaviarafxei/oi £bv yvvai^L 
Kal irai&lv is &pdyyovs y&povffiv. — Procop. B. G., iv, 20. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 97 

of Germans than at any time before, and that the British 
government under Guorteyrn, being hard pressed, re- 
solved, according to Roman practice, to enlist some as 
auxiliaries, to help them fight their battles. This, at least, 
agrees with Widukind's statement, that at various times 
the Britons applied to the Saxons for aid, which may be 
understood to refer to the Germans that lived in Britain 
as well as to the new-comers. That engagements of the 
kind were actually made seems to be well proved, and 
that at first the foreign troops did good service is shown 
from the British annals and traditions. Soon after, how- 
ever, seeing the weakness of the nation, and instigated 
most likely by the resident foreign population, especially 
those of Kent and the Isle of Wight, who, under the name 
of Dutch, Gots, Jots, Juts, or Jutes, seem to have been at 
the bottom of all Britain's misfortunes, they turned upon 
the natives, and, joining hands with the Scots and Picts, 
as other Saxons had done only a few years previous, 1 they 
succeeded, under cover of renewed inroads of the Scots 
and Picts into the northern provinces, in gaining a per- 
manent foothold in some parts of the island, whence, con- 
stantly reinforced by new arrivals from " Saxland," and 
joined by many of the old settlers and all kind of advent- 
urers, they overran the whole southeastern part of Brit- 
ain, and forced the natives into submission. 

It is no doubt probable that the whole land was not 
subdued without difficulty in some parts, and that here 
and there a courageous leader, or a favorable position, 
may even have enabled the aborigines to obtain tempo- 
rary victories over the invaders. The new immigrants, 
though not likely to find land vacant for their occupation 
among their kinsmen, who had long been settled in the 
island, were well assured of their co-operation in any 
attempt to wrest new settlements from the British. But 
no authentic record remains of the slow and gradual 
progress that would have attended the conquest of a 
brave and united people, nor is any such consistent with 
the accounts the British authors have left of the disor- 
ganized and disarmed condition of the population. A 
skirmish, carried on by very small numbers on either 
side, seems generally to have decided the fate of a cam- 
paign. Steadily from east to west, from south to north, 

1 Interea Saxones Pictique bellum adversus Britones junctis viribus suscep- 
erunt, quos eadem necessitas in castra contraxerat. — Vita S. Germani, Boll. 
Bishop Germanus came to Britain about the year 429, and died in 448. 



98 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

the sharp axes and long swords of the Teutons hewed 
their way ; wherever opposition was offered, it ended in 
the retreat of the natives to the mountains — natural fort- 
resses from which it was impossible to dislodge them, and 
from which they sometimes descended to attempt a 
hopeless effort for the liberty of their country, or revenge 
upon their oppressors. The ruder and more generous of 
their number may have preferred exile and the chances of 
emigration to subjection at home ; but the mass of the 
people, accustomed to Roman rule, or the oppression of 
native princes, 1 probably suffered little by the change of 
masters, and did little to avoid it. We learn, even, that 
at first the condition of the British under the Saxon rule 
was fair and easy, and only rendered harsher in pun- 
ishment of their unsuccessful attempts at rebellion. 2 In- 
deed, the laws of Ini, a West Saxon king, show that in ter- 
ritories subject to his rule, and bordering upon the yet 
British iands, the Welshman occupied the place of an in- 
dependent day-laborer rather than a slave. 3 Nothing in 
fact is more common, or less true, than the exaggerated 
account of total exterminations and miserable oppressions 
in the traditional literature of conquered nations ; and we 
may safely appeal even to the personal appearance of the 
peasantry in many parts of England, for evidence as to how 
much Celtic blood was permitted to subsist and even to 
mingle with that of the ruling Germans ; while the signa- 
tures to very early charters supply us with names assured- 
ly not Teutonic, and therefore probably borne by persons 
of Celtic race, occupying positions of dignity at the courts 
of Anglo-Saxon kings, similar to those held by Gallic and 
Roman ministers at the courts of Frankish and Gothic 
monarchs. 4 

It would be extremely interesting if we could follow 
the progress of the conquest in reference to the relations 

1 Gildas, Epist. querul, passim. 

2 Quorum illi qui Northvvallos, id est Aquilonales Britones dicebantur, parti 
Westsaxonum regum obvenerant. Illi quondam consuetis servitiis seduli, diu 
nil asperum retulere, sed tunc rebellionem meditantes, Kentuninus rex tarn 
anxia csede perdomuit, ut nihil ulterius sperarent. Quare et ultima malorum 
accessit captivis tributaria functio ; ut qui antea nee solam umbram palpabant 
libertatis, nunc iugum subjectionis palam ingemiscerent. — Wm. Malmsb., Vita 
Aldhelmi, ii, 14. 

3 Leges Ini, §§ 32, 33. Great numbers of Britons seem to have been rov- 
ing at all times among the Saxons, to judge from their many complaints of rob- 
beries by Welsh thieves. — Vita Guthlac. Acta Sand. 

4 See J. M. Kemble's Tract in the Proceedings of the Archaological Insti- 
tute, 1845, on Anglo-Saxon names. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. gg 

that sprang up, in course of time, between the conquerors 
and their new subjects, so as to see to what extent this 
mixture of races may have affected the language of the 
former. But this is an epoch in the history of the human 
mind which in those times seldom interested any one, 
and has not been faithfully detailed. Hence, on this sub- 
ject curiosity must submit to be disappointed. The con- 
verted Saxon remembered the practices of his idolatrous 
ancestors with too much abhorrence to record them for 
the notice of future ages ; consequently we can ouly see 
them in those imperfect sketches which patient industry 
may collect from the passages scattered in the works 
which time has spared. These, unfortunately, have been 
thus far very slender, and little beyond what Bede could 
collect at the beginning of the eighth century has fur- 
nished materials for Saxon history previous to the intro- 
duction of Christianity. All subsequent reports rest, 
therefore, mainly on the authority of this author. Though 
not entirely free from the prejudices of his time, and 
yielding ready faith to tales which his frame of mind dis- 
posed him willingly to credit, he nevertheless seems to 
have bestowed great pains upon the investigation and 
critical appreciation of the materials he collected. But 
the limits of the object he had proposed to himself, that 
is, the ecclesiastical history of the island, not only im- 
posed upon him the necessity of commencing his detailed 
narative at a comparatively late period, but led him to 
record much of England's secular history, on which he 
could find no sufficient information, or which he did not 
think worthy of belief. The deeds of pagan and barba- 
rous chieftains, moreover, offered little to attract his at- 
tention or command his sympathies, indeed, were little 
likely to be objects of interest to those from whom his 
information was generally derived. There may have been 
annals referring to these matters ; there may have been 
songs, such as Tacitus informs us the Germans had in his 
time, to record events in their history ; l but, leaving aside 
the inaccuracy and exaggeration of such kind of annals, 
even if records of that nature did exist among the Saxons 
in England, they have perished, and left no trace behind, 
unless we are to attribute to them such scanty notices as 
the Saxon chronicle adds to Bede's account. From such 

1 Celebrant carminibus antiquis, quod unum apud illos memoriae et anna- 
lium genus est. — Tacitus, De Mor. Germ., cap. ii. 



IOO ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

sources, however, little could have been gained of accu- 
rate information, either as to the real internal state, the 
domestic progress, or development of the various Saxon 
settlements. In this respect the chronicle itself is espe- 
cially defective. Not only are its notices concerning the 
early settlements in Kent, Sussex, and Wessex extremely 
vague and uncertain, but those of Northumberland are 
even still more meager and imperfect, while of Mercia, 
Essex, Eastanglia, and the innumerable kingdoms that 
must have been comprised under these general appella- 
tions, not a single word is said. We shall, therefore, not 
linger over the monotonous tale of the conquest, as taken 
from this source, but rather try to picture to ourselves the 
immediate effect of the conquest, and to know how people 
lived before their conversion from paganism, by consulting 
the records of ancient customs and manners, from which, 
for our present purpose, far more may be learned than 
from any bead-roll of the chiefs and kings whose wars are 
entered in the chronicles. The annalist summed up the 
bare results of the struggle, and was content to note that 
" so and so " slew " so many " thousand Britons, and that 
such other chief, when his wars were ended, was buried 
in such or such place. Even in this the Saxon and British 
accounts often differed vastly, according to their sympa- 
thies, their records, or traditions, as well might be expect- 
ed. The only point on which they in the main agree, was 
the terrible sufferings inflicted by the early conquerors 
upon the native population ; witness the sack of Anderida, 1 
which shows the blind ferocity which distinguished the 
first invasions. A few ruins near Pevensey were long 
shown to travelers as all that remained of the " noble 
city." 2 Many of the towns and castles were doubtless 
burned and uprooted by the rough tribes who made their 
homes in the forest, for the new-comers hated the life of 
cities, and dwelt, like their forefathers, in hamlets scat- 
tered along the banks of a stream or in the glades of a 

1 " In the year 477 cameyElle with his three sons to Cymen's-Ore, and there 
they slew many Welsh, and some they drove into the forest called Andred's- 
Lea : and when eight years had passed they fought again at a place called 
Markrede's-Burn." After six years more they encamped against Anderida, a 
fortress which had been erected for the defense of the " Saxon Shore," and de- 
stroyed it so utterly that " not one single Briton there was left alive." — Anglo- 
Saxon Chronicle, Ann., 477, 485, 491. 

2 Ita urbem destruxerunt quod nunquam postea reaedificata est ; locus tan- 
tum quasi nobilissimae urbis transeuntibus ostenditur desolatus. — Henr. Hunt., 
ii, 10. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 101 

favorite wood. 1 Some of the towns, which were spared 
at first, fell afterwards in the civil wars, and many more 
were left, in contemptuous neglect, to crumble in the 
wind and rain. But the Saxon kings, as time went on, 
learned to hold their courts in the fortresses, to choose an 
ancient city for a metropolis, to grant a Roman town to a 
favorite retainer, or to set up their own farmsteads on the 
ruins of desolated palaces. 

The people, as they became more civilized, began to 
regard these remnants of the past with feelings of wonder 
and regret. Their poets lamented the destruction of " the 
joyous halls," of the ruined towers and bare walls coated 
with frost. " The old time has fled and is lost under 
night's dark veil." The elegy called " The Ruin " tells 
how such a castle fell, as the towers of Anderida had 
fallen, and how the earth was shaken as the furnaces of 
the baths exploded in flame and steam. " Wondrous the 
wall-stone that Weird hath broken .... the roof-tree 
riven, the gray gates despoiled. Often that wall with- 
stood Rhaggar and Readfah, chieftain after chieftain ris- 
ing in storm. Bright was the burgh-place and many the 
princely halls, and high was the roof of gold. . . . And 
the court is dreary, and the crowned roof lies low in the 
shadow of the purple arch. Princes of old time, joyous 
and gold-bright and splendidly decked, proud and with 
wine elate, in war-gear shone. They looked on their 
treasures, on silver and gems and on stones of price, and 
on this bright burgh of their broad realm. The stone 
court stands, the hot stream hath whelmed it, there where 
the bath was hot on the breast." 2 

As regards the social and political relations of the 
various tribes that took part in the conquest, and of their 
descendants for several generations, we know in fact but 
little. More settled and wealthier than in their conti- 
nental homes, they had probably changed little, or, if 
at all, only for the worse, like the Franks, like all barba- 
rians who pass from action to enjoyment. Still, from 
subsequent details of their history, as far as ascertained, 
it appears that in the main they kept up the same mode 

1 Tacitus, Germ., c. 16 ; Ammian Marcell., xvi, 2, 12. 

2 The extracts are translated from the poems in the Exeter Book, ascribed 
to Cynewulf. — Thorpe, Cod-Exon., 292, 476, 478. The characteristic allitera- 
tion has been preserved as far as was practicable. For the personification of 
" Weird," or Destiny, see Kemble, Saxons in England, i, 400. The " Fates " 
are the " Weird Sisters." — Grimm, Deutsch Mythol., 377. 



102 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

of life in Britain as that which they were used to in their 
former homes. The possession of land being their great 
object, they improved the opportunity, and their agricult- 
ure seems to have been in a more advanced state than 
among their continental kinsmen. A three-course system 
of husbandry was adopted ; wheat and flax are the crops 
which seem to have been the most cultivated. We meet 
with indications of the existence of extensive estates, on 
which stood large houses, occasionally of stone, but more 
frequently of wood, for the residence of the proprietor, 
surrounded by the tun, or inclosure for cattle, and the 
bartun, or inclosure for the gathered crops. Round the 
homestead were inclosed fields, with barns, mills, and 
weirs. There were detached outlying sheepfolds and 
sheepcotes, with residences for the serfs, and special pas- 
turages were allotted to swine and goats. The estates 
were separated from one another by a mark, or broad 
boundary of woodland. There were open forest-pastures 
fed by swine, which must have presented an appearance 
resembling that of our American clearings at the pres- 
ent day. In these woodlands the prevalent vegetation 
consisted of the thorn, hazel, oak, ash, elm, lime, and 
fern. The maple, beech, birch, aspen, and willow grew 
less abundantly. There were plantations of osiers, and 
the names of the rush and sedge occur so frequently as to 
indicate a very defective state of drainage. One fact, 
however, which we gather from ancient names, indicates 
a marked peculiarity in the aspect of Anglo-Saxon Eng- 
land. In no single instance throughout the charters do 
we meet with a name implying the existence of any kind 
of pine or fir, a circumstance which curiously corroborates 
the assertion of Caesar, that there was no fir found in 
Britain. The names of fruit-trees are also very unfre- 
quent, with the exception of that of the apple-tree, and 
even this appears very rarely in conjunction with Anglo- 
Saxon roots, being found chiefly in Celtic names, such as 
Appledore, Appledur combe, and Avalon ; or in Norse names, 
such as Appleby, Applegarth, and Applet hwaite} 

The social and political organizations of the Saxons in 
England seem to have differed but little from those exist- 
ing among all Teutonic nations. The continental Saxons, 
in Bede's time, were still governed by a great number of 

1 The root apple or apul, runs through the whole of Celtic, Scandinavian, 
Teutonic, and Sclavonian languages. On Celtic names, see page 118 and fol- 
lowing; on Norse names, page 174 and following. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



103 



chieftains, each managing the affairs of a province or dis- 
trict, and having authority over the reeves, or head men 
of the villages ; when war broke out, one of the number 
was chosen by lot to lead the national forces, but on the 
return of peace they all became equal again. 1 The sys- 
tem resembled in many respects the institutions described 
by Tacitus ; for even in the states which were ruled by 
kings the chieftains arranged the smaller matters of gov- 
ernment, and had the task of carrying out what the peo- 
ple decided in their national assemblies ; and we are told 
that some of the chieftains were elected at the same as- 
semblies to administer justice in the country districts and 
villages, each having with him a hundred assessors or 
companions to give advice and to add authority to his de- 
cisions. 2 

Tacitus, from whom we derive our earliest informa- 
tion concerning the Germans of his time, supplies us with 
many details, which not only show the existence of a sys- 
tem, but tend also to prove its long prevalence. He tells 
us not only of nobles, but also of kings, princes, and in- 
herited authority, and gives us some detailed accounts 
concerning the status of the freemen and the condition of 
the serfs, which distinctions and institutions were kept 
up, undoubtedly, among the Saxons in England as they 
were among their kinsfolk in Germany and the Franks in 
Gaul. Various were the grounds and the degrees of serf- 
dom among these nations. In one case it was poverty, 
arising from over-population, which, in times of scarcity, 
allowed a man to sell even his wife and children. 3 In an- 
other it was voluntary surrender to escape starvation. 4 

1 Bede, Hist. Eccles., v, 20. 

2 Tac, Germ., 11, 13. The district or pagus administered by the chieftain 
may be regarded as the original shire, which, as the kingdoms increased in size, 
became the subdivision of a larger shire, and in course of time acquired the 
Frankish name of Centena or Hundred. The " county-court " on this view rep- 
resents the national assembly of an extinct Kingdom, and the " hundred-court " 
the assembly of one of its original districts. 

3 Ac primo boves ipsos, mox agros, postremo corpora coniugum aut libero- 
rum servitio tradebant. — Tacit., Annal., iv, 72. Even as late as the end of the 
seventh century, and after Christianity had been establishec 1 for nearly one hun- 
dred years, we find the following distinct and clear recognition of this right in 
books of discipline compiled for the guidance of the clergy : " Pater filium sep- 
tem annorum, necessitate compulsus, potestatem habet tradere in servitium ; 
deinde, sine voluntate filii, licentiam tradendi non habet." — Theodori Arch. 
Cant., Liber Poenitentialis, xxviii. 

4 Si liber homo spontenea voluntate vel forte necessitate coactus, nobili, seu 
libero, seu etiam lito in personam et in servitium liti se subdiderit. — Lex Fres., 
xi, I. The Anglo-Saxon law gave this power of voluntary surrender to a boy 



104 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

Another cause was debt, especially gambling debt, in 
which case the unsuccessful gambler, who had staked and 
lost his liberty and the free disposal of his own body, upon 
one fatal cast of the dice, would voluntarily submit to be 
bound and sold. 1 Another, and important cause, was for- 
feiture of liberty for crime. But by far the larger num- 
ber of serfs were the slaves by fortune of war. It was 
held among the ancients that, if the victor has a right to 
the life of the vanquished, which by the law of nature is 
unquestionably the case, he possesses, even on stronger 
grounds, a perfect claim to the person, the property, and 
the services of his prisoner, if his self-interest or the 
dictates of humanity induce him to waive that right. 
Though these views apply, no doubt, in their fullest force 
to the Saxons in their victories over the Britons, it does 
not follow, however, that the total defeat of a hostile 
tribe resulted invariably in the immediate and direct en- 
slaving of all the survivors — men, women, and children ; 
for, though the unlucky fate of war must have almost al- 
ways led to the murder of the captive chiefs and nobles, 
and even though many of the common freemen may have 
been sold or retained as slaves at the caprice of the cap- 
tors, yet we can not suppose this to have been the lot of 
any but those who had actually taken part in combat ; no 
natural or national law could extend these harsh provis- 
ions to the freemen who remained quiet at home. Never- 
theless, even these were liable to be indirectly affected by 
the hostile triumph, inasmuch as the conquerors appear 
to have invariably taken a portion, if not all, of the terri- 
tory occupied by the conquered, thereby depriving the 
cultivator of means sufficient for his support, and leaving 
him no other resource but to place himself in dependence 
upon some wealthier man — in other words, to become a 
serf by voluntary surrender. Men so situated formed the 
large body of artisans and mechanics in various branches 
of industry, the domestic and menial servants of the free 
landowner, while on the estate in general they discharged 
the functions of plowman, barnman, oxherd, shepherd, 
swineherd, dairymaid, etc., which will give an idea of 

of thirteen. — Theodori, Poenit., xxix. Gildas tells of such cases of voluntary- 
surrender among the Britons. " Interea fames dira ac famosissima vagis ac 
mutabundis haeret, quae multos eorum cruentis compellit prasdonihus sine dila- 
tione victas dare manus, ut pauxillum ad refocillandam animam cibi caperent. — 
Hist. Brit., xvii. 

1 Servos conditionis huius per commercia tradunt, ut se quoque pudore 
victoriae exsolvant. — Tacit., Germ., xxiv. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 105 

the class of Celtic words that gradually found their way 
into the Saxon, and have remained current in the English 
language. 

It is now generally admitted that such was the condi- 
tion of the British population in general, who thus be- 
came dependent upon their Saxon lords ; but grievous and 
inglorious as this condition was, it did not bring the con- 
quered into that peculiar relation to their masters which 
the word serf strictly implies toward an owner. They 
were probably well enough provided for, and formed a 
sort of middle class among the unfree ; comprising the 
great majority of those who, without being absolutely 
their own masters, were yet placed somewhat above the 
lowest and most abject condition of man, which we call 
slavery. The real slave was the absolute property of his 
lord, a chattel to be disposed of at the lord's pleasure. 
The taint of blood descended to his offspring, and the in- 
nocent progeny, to the remotest generations, were born to 
the same miserable fate as bowed down the guilty or 
unfortunate parent. Nor was this low degree of slavery 
confined to the Briton population exclusively ; Saxons 
were equally liable to the same degradation, either 
through crime or through the fate of war, owing to the 
unsettled state of their respective boundaries, which led 
to constant conflict. So numerous was at one time this 
class of captives, that they were disposed of abroad ; and 
it was even the exhibition for sale of some fine blue-eyed, 
fair-haired Anglo-Saxon boys in the slave-mart in Rome 
that indirectly led to the mission of Augustin to Eng- 
land. 

Pope Gregory the Great, noticing the bright appear- 
ance of some of these youths, and having ascertained the 
place of their nativity, conceived the idea of educating a 
certain number, to be returned in time as missionaries to 
England. With this object in view he ordered, in the 
slave-markets of various places, young men of Anglo-Sax- 
on race to be sought of seventeen or eighteen years of 
age. 1 These his agents bought and placed in monaste- 
ries, imposing upon them the task of making themselves 
acquainted with the doctrines of the Catholic faith, so as 
to be able to teach them in their native language. It 
would seem, however, that these intended missionaries 

1 Volumus ut dilectio tua .... pueros anglos, qui sunt ab annis decern et 
septem, vel decern et octo, ut in monasteriis dati Deo proficiant comparet.— 
Gregorii papae epistola ad Candidum firesbyterum. 

9 



106 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

did not come up to the expectation of their teachers, for 
Pope Gregory, soon laying aside his original plan, re- 
solved to intrust the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to 
Romans of tried faith and solid learning. The chief of 
this mission was named Augustin, and he was, ere his 
departure, consecrated Bishop of England. Thus far the 
British Christians, though deficient neither in faith nor in 
zeal, had never attempted the conversion of their Saxon 
masters, and Bede counts it among their greatest sins 
" that they never preached the faith to the Saxons or Eng- 
lish that dwelt among them." * But resentment at foreign 
usurpation, and an immovable conviction of better days 
to come, absorbed all their thoughts, while the contempt 
of the haughty conqueror for an enslaved people extend- 
ed also to their faith and their religious rites. Conversion 
therefore, if possible at all, had to come from outside, and 
under more auspicious, influences. 

On their way to England, the Roman mission, under 
the leadership of Augustin, repaired first to Chalons, 
where dwelt Theodoric, son of Hildebert, king of half 
the eastern portion of the country conquered by the 
Franks. They next went to Metz where, over the other 
half, reigned Theodebert, another son of Hildebert. For 
both these kings they brought letters from Pope Grego- 
ry, 2 calculated to excite their good will in lending aid and 
protection to the members of the mission, and such assist- 
ance as was in their power to promote the success of the 
pious enterprise. How little was known at that time 
about the real state of things in England, and the pros- 
pect of stability of the Saxon conquest, appears from 
these very letters of Pope Gregory, who, knowing that 
the Franks were at war with the Saxons of Germany, re- 
fers to the Anglo-Saxons beyond the seas, whom these 
monks were on their way to convert, as subjects of the 
Franks. " I have felt," he wrote to the two sons of Hil- 
debert, " that you would ardently desire the happy con- 
version of your subjects to the faith which you yourselves 
profess — yoUy their lords and kings ; this conviction has 
induced me to send Augustin, the bearer of these pres- 
ents, with other servants of God, to labor there under 
your auspices." 8 Upon this the Frank kings welcomed 
the mission, and defrayed its expenses on its way toward 

1 Bede, Eccles. Hist. y xxii. 2 Epist. Greg., passim. 

8 Opera Gregorii, papa iv. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



107 



the sea. The king of the western Franks, although at 
war with his relations oi the east, received the Romans 
as graciously as they had done, and assisted them with 
men of the Frank nation to act as interpreters with the 
English people, who spoke the same language. 1 As these 
interpreters, selected to communicate with the people of 
Kent, belonged to the Salian Franks, whose ancestors 
originally dwelt in the Rhenish Netherlands, the fact 
of their being chosen from among these tribes goes far to 
prove, as already inferred, that some of the first invaders 
of Britain came from Holland. 

In the year 597, Augustin and the members of his 
mission landed in England, on the very spot where Hen- 
gist was said to have landed a century and a half before, 
in the isle of Thanet ; and the interpreters whom he had 
chosen among the Franks were at once sent to Ethelbert, 
then king of Kent, with news of their arrival, as well as 
with promises of things strange to his ears — of joy with- 
out end, and a kingdom forever in heaven. Ethelbert 
undoubtedly was aware of their coming. He had married 
Bertha, a daughter of the Frankish king Charibert, on 
the condition that she should be allowed to remain a 
Christian ; her chaplain, Bishop Lindhard, formed a part 
of the Kentish court ; and a ruined church, now known 
as that of St. Martin outside the new Canterbury, had 
been given him for his worship. Negotiations with Ber- 
tha and with the king himself had probably preceded the 
landing of Augustin ; and, after a few days' delay, Ethel- 
bert crossed into Thanet to confer with the new-comers. 
They found him sitting in the open air on a chalk down, 
" for fear of magic," says Bede ; and the king listened 
patiently to the sermon of Augustin as the interpreters 
rendered it in his native tongue. " Your words are fair," 
he answered, " but they are new and of doubtful mean- 
ing." For himself, he said, he refused to forsake the gods 
of his fathers ; but, with the usual religious tolerance of 
the Teutonic race, he promised shelter and protection to 
the strangers within his own dominions. After a short 
time, however, the king listened to the missionaries, and 
thousands of Kentish men crowded to baptism in the train 
of their chief. 2 Thus far success surpassed the most san- 

1 Naturalis ergo lingua Francorum communicat cum Anglis eo quod de 
Germania gentes ambae germinaverint. — Willelm Malmsb., De Gest reg. angl., 
lib. i ; Bede, Hist. Ecclesiast., lib. ii, cap. xxiii, xxiv, xxv. 

2 Pope Gregory, writing in 598, rejoices that at the past Christmas " plus 



108 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

guine expectations of Augustin and his mission ; but 
more trying and less fruitful were the efforts of Paulinus 
in Northumbria, where, after a first apparent success, he 
was compelled to leave, on account of its hopeless re- 
lapse into idolatry. Through the influence of Ethelbert, 
Rasdwald, the king of the East Anglians, had been in- 
duced to become a Christian ; but finding no disposition 
among his people to adopt the new faith, and being vehe- 
mently opposed by his wife and some of his pagan priests, 1 
he strove to satisfy the voice of his conscience and the 
will of his people by a characteristic compromise, in no 
wise uncommon in those days. He retained the older 
gods, but he placed the new Christ among them, and set 
a Christian altar in the temples beside the altar of the 
deities of his race. 2 During the greater part of the cent- 
ury which followed the coming of Augustin, the people 
of each kingdom relapsed into paganism as often as their 
careless rulers allowed them a greater liberty, or a pesti- 
lence, or a defeat in battle recalled the power of the an- 
cient gods. Even in Kent the heathen temples were not 
formally abolished until the year 640, and it is recorded 
that five years before that time not a single church or 
outward sign of Christianity had been set up in the whole 
kingdom of Bernicia. 3 It was only at a later period, 
through the efforts of the Irish missionaries, that the 
Christian religion prevailed among the Angles, whose 
conversion, being supported by numerous schools and re- 
ligious establishments, spread among the people a certain 
degree of culture which exerted a permanent influence 
on the future of the national language. 

The greatest difficulties which the Christian mission- 
aries had to contend with, in England as well as else- 
where, were not only the pagan rites and ceremonies con- 
nected with the idolatrous religion of the forefathers of 
their converts, the practice of which it took long to eradi- 

quam decern millia Angli ab eodem nunciati sunt fratre (Augustino) et coepisco- 
po nostro baptizari." — Stubbs and Haddam, Councils, iii, 12. Notice that here 
the men of Kent are called Angles and not Saxons. 

1 Rediens domum, ab uxore sua et quibusdam perversis doctoribus seductus 
est. — Bede, Hist. EccL, ii, 15. 

2 Ita ut, in morem antiquorum Samaritanorum, et Christo servire videretur 
et diis quibus antea serviebat ; atque in eodem fano et altare haberet ad sacri- 
ficium Christi, et arulam ad victimas dsemoniorum. — Bede, Hist. EccL, ii, 15. 
This temple, with its two altars, lasted almost to Bede's day. Quod fanum rex 
ejusdem provincise Aldwulf, qui nostra setate fuit, usque ad suum tempus perdu- 
rasse, et se in pueritia vidisse testabatur. 

3 Bede, Hist. Eccles., i, 30 ; ii, 5, 15 ; Epist. ad Ecgbert, 5, 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 109 

cate ; 1 it was especially the kind of heathen poetry still 
current among them, as for generations it was among all 
Teutonic nations, and by means of which the memory 
and practice of their ancient rites and ceremonies was 
kept alive in their heathen songs at wakes and festivals, 
and which in general were of a low and demoralizing 
character. It was to counteract this influence that the 
clergy composed Christian hymns and songs in the nation- 
al language, which, to be effective, had to conform to the 
taste of the age, and to be made equal to the best poems 
then extant and admired by the most intelligent of those 
who had embraced the new religion. These considera- 
tions must not be overlooked if we would understand the 
peculiar character of the first great Christian Anglo-Sax- 
on poem, which bears the name of Casdmon. If some- 
thing of the legendary hangs over his personal history, it 
only shows how strongly his poetry had stirred the imag- 
ination of his people. " The author," says Longfellow, 
" is a pious, prayerful monk — an awful, reverend, and re- 
ligious man. He has all the simplicity of a child. He 

1 Ita christiani sunt isti barbari, ut multos priscse superstitionis ritus obser- 
vent, humanas hostias aliaque impia sacrificia divinationibus adhibentes. — Pro- 
copius sub anno 539, apud Script, rer. gallic, et francic. Pope Gregory says of 
the Lombards : More suo immolaverunt caput caprae diabolo, hoc ei per circuitum 
currentes et carmine nefando dedicantes. — Greg. Magn., Dialog, iii, cap. 28. 
The sources of information as to the character of the English paganism are of 
extremely various kinds, comprising such matters as the ancient forms of laws 
and canons against heathen practices, traditionary spells and incantations, and 
legends connected with Runic letters, and the plants used in medicine. They 
furnish the most conclusive evidence that the mythology current among the old 
Saxons was also current among the Saxons in England. Kemble cites the chap- 
ter in the " Penitential of Theodore " devoted to the description of the heathen 
practices. " Qui grana arserit ubi mortuus est homo, etc. Siquis pro sanitate 
filioli per foramen terras exierit, illudque spinis post se concludit, etc. Siquis 
in Kal. Januar. in cervulo vel vitula vadit, id est in ferarum habitus se commu- 
nicant, et vestiuntur pellibus pecudum et assumunt capita bestiarum : qui vero 
taliter in ferinas species se transformant .... quia hoc dsemoniacum est." — 
Saxons in England, i, 525, 528 ; and he adds, " It is not going too far to assert 
that the boar's head, which yet forms the ornament of our festive tables, espe- 
cially at Christmas, may have been inherited from heathen days, and that the 
vows made upon it in the Middle Ages may have had their sanction in ancient 
paganisms." Other survivals from heathen times occur in the names of the days 
of the week, which probably date from a time long preceding the conquest of 
England, and even the very name of " Easter " is connected with the worship 
of the Anglian goddess " Eostre," whose festivals are mentioned by Bede ; " anti- 
qui Anglorum populi, gens mea .... apud eos Aprilis Esturmonath, quondam 
a dea. illorum quae Eostra vocabatur et cui in illo festa celebrantur, nomen ha- 
buit." — De Temp. Rat., c. 13. For more ample information on this subject, see 
Statistique Judiciaire des Francs, des Anglo-Saxons et autres Peuples du Moy 'en- 
Age, par M. Moreau de Tonnes, in the Stances et Travaux de TAcadcmie des 
Sciences Morales et Politique s, Comptes Rendus, 1852. 



1 10 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

calls his creator the Blythe Heart King ; the patriarchs, 
earls ; and their children, noblemen. Abraham is a wise- 
heedy, a guardian of bracelets, a mighty earl; and his 
wife Sarah, a woman of elfin beauty. The sons of Reuben 
are called sea-pirates; the Ethiopians, a people brown 
with the hot coals of heaven. Striking poetic epithets 
and passages are not wanting, sprinkling here and there 
through the narrative. The sky is called the roof of na- 
tions, the roof adorned with stars. Whenever the author 
has a battle to describe, and hosts of arm-bearing and 
wayfaring men draw from their sheaths the ring-hilted 
swords of doughty edges, he enters into the matter with 
so much spirit that one can almost see, looking from un- 
der his monkish cowl, the visage of no parish priest, but 
of a grim war- wolf, as the brave were called when Caed- 
mon wrote." 

This, however, shows how well he understood the 
spirit of the age, and the likings of the people whom he 
was addressing. If his poetry was at all to be successful 
in arresting and overwhelming the pagan flow of ideas, 
kept up by such lay-poetry as was then current among 
his countrymen, a people of brutal habits, used to daily 
scenes of war and bloodshed, it had to excel in all that 
was calculated to stir their feelings, and to produce deep- 
er emotions than those they were in the habit of receiving 
from their national songs and the weird conceits of their 
ancestral poets. The latter recorded the mystic deeds of 
Thor, and Odin, and other pagan gods, the fights and vic- 
tories of legendary heroes, the wild recital of which usu- 
ally concluded the festive repasts and entertainments 
among all Teutonic nations after the beer had flowed free- 
ly. On such occasions pretty sentimentalities would have 
been out of question. So they do not speak; they sing, 
or rather shout. Each little verse is an acclamation, 
which breaks forth with a growl ; their strong breasts 
heave with a groan of anger or enthusiasm, and a vehe- 
ment phrase or indistinct expression rises suddenly, al- 
most in spite of them, to their lips. There is no art, no 
natural talent for describing singly and in order the dif- 
ferent parts of an object or an event. The fifty rays of 
light which every phenomenon emits in succession to a 
regular and well-directed intellect, come to them at once 
in a glowing and confused beam, disabling them by their 
force and convergence. Listen to their genuine war- 
chants, unchecked and violent, as became their terrible 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. m 

voices. To this day, at this distance in time, separated as 
they are from us by manners and speech for over ten 
centuries, it seems we hear them still. 1 

" The army goes forth ; the birds sing, the cricket 
chirps, the war-weapons sound, the lance clangs against 
the shield. Now shineth the moon, wandering under the 
sky. Now arise the deeds of woe, which the enmity of 
this people prepares to do. . . . Then in the court came 
the tumult of war-carnage. They seized with their hands 
the hollow w r ood of the shield. They smote through the 
bones of the head. The roofs of the castle resounded, un- 
til Garulf fell in battle, the first of earth-dwelling men, 
son of Guthlaf. Around him lay many brave men dying. 
The raven whirled about, dark and somber, like a willow 
leaf. There was a sparkling of blades, as if all Finsburg 
were on fire. Never have I heard of a more worthy bat- 
tle in war." 2 

There is another song on Athelstan's victory at Bru- 
nanburh. His army having overpassed the northern limit 
agreed upon between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes, 
the latter formed an offensive league, under the leadership 
of their king Olaf with the Picts and Scots and the tribe 
of ancient Britons who inhabited the valley of the Clyde. 
This confederation was a formidable one, and comprised 
within its ranks the men of the Baltic, the Danes of the 
Orcades, the Gaels of the Hebrides, armed with their 
long two-handed swords, which they called glay-more, the 
Gaels of the Grampians, and the Cambrians of Dumbar- 
ton and Galloway, bearing long, slight pikes. The two 
armies met north of the H umber, at a place called in Sax- 
on Brunanburgk, or " the town of fountains," now Bam- 
borough. Victory declared for the English, who com- 
pelled the wreck of the confederates to make a painful 
retreat to their ships, their islands, and their mountains. 
The conquerors named this day "the day of the great 
fight," and celebrated it in their national songs, of which 
the following is a fragment, and though of a much later 
date than the former (a. d. 937), its language is still more 
wild and disconnected : 

" This year Athelstan king, of earls the lord, the giver 
of the bracelets of the nobles, and his brother also, Ed- 
ward the aetheling, the elder a lasting glory, won by 

1 H. A. Taine, Histoire de la literature Anglaise. 

2 Conybeare's Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, Battle of Finsborough. 



112 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

slaughter in battle, with the edges of swords, at Brunan- 
burh. The wall of shields they cleared, they hewed the 
noble banners : with the rest of the family, the children of 
Edward. . . . Pursuing, they destroyed the Scottish peo- 
ple and the ship-fleet. . . . The field was colored with 
the warriors' blood ! After that the sun on high .... 
the greatest star ! glided over the earth, God's candle 
bright ! till the noble creature hastened to her set- 
ting. There lay soldiers, many with darts struck down. 
Northern men over their shields shot. So were the 

Scotch, weary of ruddy battle The screamers of 

war they left behind ; the raven to enjoy, the dismal kite, 
and the black raven with horned beak, and the hoarse 
toad ; the eagle afterward to feed on the white flesh ; the 
greedy battle-hawk, and the gray beast, the wolf in the 
wood." 1 

Here, all is imagery. In their impassioned minds, events 
are not bald with the dry propriety of an exact descrip- 
tion ; each fits in with its pomp of sound, shape, and col- 
oring ; it is almost a vision, with its accompanying emo- 
tions — joy, fury, excitement. In their speech, arrows are 
" the serpents of Hel, 2 shot from bows of horn " ; ships are 
" great sea-steeds " ; the sea is " a chalice of waves " ; the 
helmet " the castle of the head " ; they need an extraordi- 
nary language to express their vehement sensations, and, 
inspiration failing, their poets are reduced to a distorted 
and obscure jargon, which, in spite of all its imagery, is gen- 
erally feeble. They can not express their inner emotion by 
a single word, and so, time after time, they return to and 
repeat the same idea. The sun on high ! the great star ! 
God's brilliant candle ! the noble creature ! Four times 
in short succession the poet here repeats his thoughts, 
and each time under a new aspect. All these different 
aspects rise simultaneously before the barbarian's eyes, 
and each word acts like a shock on his excited nerves. 
Under such conditions the regularity of ideas is disturbed 
at every turn, and the succession of thought is at variance 
with the roaming mind. One color slurs another, each 
succeeding image crowds out the one preceding the mo- 
ment it is traced, and the confusion thus produced acts 
on the imagination like a diorama of unexplained pictures. 

1 Sharon Turner, History of the Anglo-Saxons ; Angl. Sax. Chron.> ann., 

937- 

2 Hel, the goddess of death, born of Loki and Angrboda, ruled in a future 
world destined for cowards and traitors. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



"3 



His phrases recur and change seemingly at random ; he 
emits the word that comes to his lips without apparent 
thought and without hesitation ; from sound he passes to 
sound, and leaps over wide intervals from idea to idea. 
The more he is transported, the quicker and wider are 
the intervals traversed. In one bound he visits the most 
distant parts of his horizon, and there he touches objects 
which seem to have the whole world between them. 
Then abruptly, and without giving notice, he will return 
to the idea he has quitted, and insert in it the thought to 
which he is giving expression — all this in short abrupt 
lines, whose sole ornament is alliteration, the awkward 
search for which tends to render the already confused 
ideas still more entangled, often to such an extent as to 
leave them utterly unintelligible, and to baffle all attempts 
at translation. 

Such are the characteristics of early Anglo-Saxon 
poetry in general, including that of Caedmon. Hear 
him ; he also sings when he speaks. When he mentions 
the ark, he uses no less than thirty consecutive phrases ; 
it is " the sea-house, the wooden fortress, the greatest of 
floating chambers, the ocean palace, the cavern, the sea- 
chest, the building of the waves," etc., etc. Every time 
he thinks of it, he sees it in his mind with a quick luminous 
vision, and each time under a new aspect, and casting 
over the water its enormous shadow, black and high like 
a huge castle, now undulating on the muddy waves, in- 
closing in its sides all kinds of caged beasts. In relating 
the death of Pharaoh, his words and phrases are inco- 
herent and wild, like the torrent of the dashing waves : 
" The folk were affrighted, the flood-dread seized on their 
sad souls ; ocean wailed with death ; the mountain-heights 
with blood besteamed, the sea-foamed gore ; crying was 
in the waves, the water full of weapons; a death-mist 
rose ; the Egyptians were turned back ; trembling they 
fled, they felt fear ; gladly would that host find their 
homes; their vaunt grew sadder; against them, as a 
cloud, rose the fell rolling of the waves ; there came not 
any of that host to home, but from behind inclosed them 
fate with the wave. Where ways ere lay sea now raged. 
Their might was merged, the streams stood, the storm 
rose high to heaven, the loudest army-cry the hostile ut- 
tered; the air above was thickened with dying voices; 
blood pervaded the flood, the shield-walls were riven ; 
shook the firmament that greatest of sea-depths. . . . The 



114 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

bursting ocean whooped a bloody storm the seaman's 
way ; till that the true God through Moses's hand en- 
larged its force, widely drove it, it swept death in its em- 
brace. . . . Ocean raged, drew itself up on high, the 
storms rose, the corpses rolled. . . . The Guardian of the 
flood struck the unsheltering wave of the foamy gulfs 
with an ancient falchion, that in the swoon of death these 
armies slept." l 

Another, whose poem is mutilated, has related the 
history of Judith with the same excess of feeling and of 
language. " Then was Holofernes exhilarated with wine ; 
in the halls of his guests he laughed and shouted, he 
roared and dinned. Then might the children of men afar 
off hear how the stern one stormed and clamored, ani- 
mated and elated with wine. He admonished amply that 
they should bear it well to those sitting on the bench. 2 
So was the wicked one all the day, the lord and his men 
drunk with wine, the stern dispenser of wealth, till that 
they lay over-drunk, all his nobility, as they were death- 
slain." He falls dead drunk on his bed ; then the moment 
has come for " the illustrious virgin," " the maid of the 
Creator," " the holy woman." " She took the heathen 
man fast by his hair ; she drew him by his limbs toward 
her disgracefully ; and the mischief-full, odious man, at 
her pleasure laid, so as the wretch she might the easiest 
well command. She with the twisted locks struck the 
hateful enemy, meditating hate, with the red sword, till 
she had half cut off his neck ; so that he lay in a swoon, 
drunk and mortally wounded. He was not then dead — 
not entirely lifeless; earnest then she struck another time 
the heathen hound — she the woman illustrious in strength 
— till that his head rolled forth upon the floor. Cofferless 
lay the foul one ; downward turned his spirit under the 
abyss, and there was plunged below with sulphur fastened ; 

1 Thorpe's Ccedmon, xlvii, p. 206. 

2 Bench, in Anglo-Saxon bene ; in Dutch and Frankish, bank ; whence the 
forms banket and banquet, meaning " a rich entertainment ; a feast." In Anglo- 
Saxon, bencswtg meant " a convivial noise." In olden times, among the Teu- 
tonic nations, the tables were made of loose boards, so fitted as to come easily 
apart and allow their removal after festive repasts, when carousing was con- 
tinued on the benches. Invitatis ad epulum multis, hos tres fecit sedere subsel- 
lio, cumque in eo prandium elongatum fuisset spatio, ut nox mundum obrueret, 
ablata mensa, ut mos Francorum est, illi in subsellia sua sicut locati fuerant, resi- 
debant ; potatoque vino multo, in tantum crapulati sunt ut pueri eorum made- 
facti, per angulos domus, ubi quisque corruerat, obdomirent. — Greg. Turr., x, c. 
xxvii. The old English fashion of removing the cloth after dinner seems to be 
a remnant of this practice. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 115 

forever wounded by worms. In torments bound — hard 
imprisoned — he burns in hell. After his course he need 
not hope that he may escape from that mansion of worms, 
with darkness overwhelmed ; but there he shall remain 
ever and ever — without end — henceforth void of the joys 
of hope, in that cavern home." 1 

The final destruction of all things by fire is thus de- 
scribed by Cynewulf : " So the greedy guest shall earth 
pervade ; the destroying flame shall fill with fire's horror 
the high structures on the earth's plain ; the wide-spread- 
ing blast, the whole world together, hot, all-devouring. 
Down shall fall the city walls, in pieces broken. The hills 
shall melt ; shall melt the high cliffs that erst against 
ocean, firm against floods, the earth had shielded, stern 
and steadfast, bulwarks against the waves, the encircling 
water. Then shall the death-flame seize each creature, 
beasts and fowls ; along the earth shall pass the fire-swart 
flame, a burning warrior ; as of old the rivers, the floods 
he drove, so then in a fire-bath the sea-fishes shall be 
burned ; cut off from ocean each animal of the wave 
weary shall die ; water shall burn as wax. There shall 
be more wonders than any may conceive ; how the stun, 
and the storm, and the strong blast shall break broad 
creation ; men shall wail, shall weep, moaning with voices, 
abject, humble, sad in mind, with repentance afflicted." 2 

In tracing the history of a language, we can not well 
avoid referring to its literature where it is necessary to 
show its gradual changes in the way of improvement, 
which were great and rapid in England at this period, and 
are noticeable even when viewed by means of transla- 
tion. This will especially appear in a poem by Bishop 
Aldhelm, who died in 709, that is, twenty-five years before 
Bede, and who was a friend and relation of King Ina. He 
was a native of Wessex, which up to his time had been 
distinguished for its military more than for its literary 
successes, and was the first great name in southern litera- 
ture. He translated the Psalms of David into his native 
tongue ; like his northern predecessors he composed popu- 
lar hymns to drive out the old pagan songs. He was a 
true poet, and was often heard singing, on the bridge of 
the town where he lived, profane and sacred hymns alter- 
nately, for the instruction of his people. In one of his 

1 Sharon Turner, Hist, of the Anglo-Saxons, iii, 9, ch. 3. 

9 Exeter Book, p. 58. Arnold, Manual of English Literature. 



n6 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



poems, a funeral song, Death speaks. The brief meter 
sounds abruptly, with measure stroke, like the sound of 
the tolling bell. It is as if one could hear the dull, gloomy 
responses of the assistants through the church, while the 
winter rain beats on the dim glass, and the dark clouds 
sail mournfully in the sky ; and our eyes, fixed on the pale 
face of the dead man, will fill with furtive tears at the 
words of horror describing the damp, loathsome grave, 
into which the living are about to cast him. The poem is 
called The Grave ; it has been often translated, and is ren- 
dered by Longfellow as follows : 

And Death hath the key. 
Loathsome is that earth-house, 
And grim within to dwell, 
And worms shall divide thee. 



For thee was a house built 
Ere thou wert born ; 
For thee was a mold meant 
Ere thou of mother earnest. 
But it is not made ready, 
Nor its depth measured, 
Nor is it seen 
How long it shall be. 
Now I bring thee 
Where thou shalt be, 
How I shall measure thee 
And the mold afterward. 

Doorless is that house, 
And dark it is within ; 
There thou art fast detained, 



Thus thou art laid, 

And leavest thy friends ; 

Thou hast no friend 

Who will come to thee, 

Who will ever see 

How that house pleaseth thee, 

Who will ever open 

The door for thee, 

And descend after thee ; 

For soon thou art loathsome 

And hateful to see. 



It was thus that Christianity in England, as well as else* 
where, became the cradle of its national literature. Be- 
yond some heathen songs there certainly was but little of 
it in England before the arrival of Augustin and his mis- 
sion. But these missionaries could not fail to have 
brought with them from Rome the intellectual culture of 
the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, so far at 
least as it had survived the fall of the Western Empire 
and the irruption of the barbarians. The Roman and 
Irish alphabets, parchment, pen and ink, drove out the 
northern Runes, the beechen tablet, and, the scratching 
implement. The necessity for the preservation, and at 
least partial translation of the Scriptures, the varied exi- 
gencies of the Catholic ritual, the demand for so much 
knowledge of astronomy as would enable the clergy to fix 
beforehand the date of Easter, all favored, or rather com- 
pelled, the promotion of learning and education up to a 
certain point in those who took the lead in religious af- 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. ny 

fairs, and led to a continual discussion and interchange of 
ideas. 

During the first century and a half after the arrival of 
Augustin, there were two centers where learning pros- 
pered and literature flourished. These centers were Wes- 
sex and Northumbria ; for although Christianity was first 
preached in Kent, and the great monastery of Canterbury 
was long a valuable school of theology and history, yet 
the limited size of the kingdom, and the ill-fortune that 
befel it in its wars with Mercia and Wessex, seem to have 
checked its intellectual growth. But in Wessex and 
Northumbria alike, the size of the territory, the presence 
of numerous monasteries, and not less the proximity of 
Celtic peoples and Celtic societies endowed with many lit- 
erary gifts — the Welsh in the case of Wessex, the Cul- 
dees 1 of Iona in the case of Northumbria — co-operated to 
produce a long period of literary activity. It was thus that 
Celtic masters became the earliest teachers of the Anglo- 
Saxons, and that the Celtic spirit became largely infused 
into early English literature. " If I were asked," says 
Matthew Arnold, " where English poetry got these three 
things, its turn for style, its turn for melancholy, and its 
turn for natural magic, for catching and rendering the 
charm of nature in a wonderfully near and vivid way, I 
should answer, with some doubt, that it got much of its 
turn of style from a Celtic source ; with less doubt, that 
it got much of its melancholy from a Celtic source ; with 
no doubt at all, that from a Celtic source it got nearly all 
of its natural magic." 2 

But if the bright coloring and romantic note, found in 
English poetry, may be ascribed to an abiding Celtic in- 
fluence, this influence, it must be observed, is more liter- 
ary than lexical, and extends but little to the vocabulary 
of the language. That in the course of fourteen centu- 
ries, during which the two languages have been spoken 
simultaneously in the same country, many words were 
borrowed from each other, there can be no doubt. That 
few Celtic words have been retained in the English lan- 
guage is still more certain, and nearly all these, as may 
be expected from the nature of the circumstances al- 
ready explained, refer to domestic matters and objects of 

1 An order of ecclesiastics possessing numerous establishments in Scotland 
and Ireland, and a few also in England and Wales. Iona was an Irish founda- 
tion. See Dean Reeves's Culdees of the British Islands. 

2 Matthew Arnold, Celtic Literature, p. 135. 



Il8 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

slight importance. Excepting the words "bard," from 
the Welsh bardd, " a poet " ; " druid," from the Gaelic 
druidh ; and "park," from the Welsh parwg, "an inclosed 
field " — which are found in all European languages — the 
only common names whose Celtic origin can be affirmed 
with any degree of certainty are the following : " Bas- 
ket," from the Welsh basged, " a netting or plaiting made 
of twigs, split wood, or rushes " ; " barley," from the 
Welsh barrlys, composed of bar a, " bread," and llys, " a 
plant " ; " clan," from the Gaelic clann, drived from clirin, 
" children " ; " crag," from the Welsh craig, and the Gaelic 
creag, " a rock, a stone " ; " crock, crockery," from the 
Welsh croclian, "an earthen vessel, a pitcher"; "hog," 
from the Welsh hwch, "a swine"; "griddle," from the 
Welsh greidyll, from greidio, "to scorch," in Gaelic, gread, 
"to burn"; "mattock," from the Gaelic madog," a pick- 
axe " ; "glen," from the Cornish glyn y or the Gaelic gleami, 
" a valley " ; " mop," from the Gaelic moibeal, " a broom " ; 
and" welt," from the Welsh gwald, "a hem." The Gaelic 
plaide, " a blanket," has given the word " plaid." Llanelly> 
a great place for the Welsh flannel manufacture, is be- 
lieved to have given the name to this kind of soft woolen 
cloth ; in the same way as " drugget " or " droget," as it 
was formerly written, is said to have been first made at 
Drogheda, in Ireland. The Gaelic claidheamh> " a sword," 
and mor, " great," have made the English " claymore," the 
Highland broadsword ; and from the Gaelic and Erse 
uisge, " water," we have the word " whisky." 1 

But few and unimportant as are the Celtic common 
names that have survived in the English language, many 
are the remains of Celtic speech that still live upon the 
map of England, though they have vanished from the 
glossary. As an eloquent writer has observed, " Mount- 
ains and rivers still murmur the voices of nations long de- 
nationalized or extirpated." 2 Language adheres to the 
soil when the race by which it was spoken has been swept 
from off the earth, or when its remnants have been driven 
from the plains, which they once peopled, into the fast- 
nesses of the surrounding mountains. 

1 Uisge beatha, from which the English word " usquebaugh " is derived, is 
Irish, and literally means "water of life" ; in Latin, aqua vitce ; in French, eau 
de vie. Dropping the latter element, and retaining only uisge, the word has 
remained in English in the form of " whisky." Compare the Dutch brande- 
wyn, from branden, " to burn," and wyn, " wine," with the term " fire-water." 

2 Palgrave, Normandy and England, vol. i, p. 701. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



II 9 



All local names were once words, generally picturesque, 
or descriptive of that natural phenomenon which would 
be most certain to impress the imagination of a rude peo- 
ple. In many instances the original import of such names 
has faded away, or has become disguised in the lapse of 
ages. Nevertheless, the primeval meaning may be recov- 
erable, and whenever it is recovered, the name of a dis- 
trict, a river, or a town may speak to us of events which 
written history has failed to commemorate, and often fur- 
nishes evidence determinative of controversies that other- 
wise could never be brought to a conclusion. 

The names of places, moreover, have the linguistic 
value of being conservative of the more archaic forms of 
languages still living, and of embalming for us the guise 
and fashion of speech in eras the most remote. These 
topographic words, which float down upon the parlance 
of successive generations of men, are subject in their 
course to less phonetic abrasion than the other elements 
of speech. Such words, it is true, are subject to special 
perils, arising from attempts at accommodating their 
forms to the requirements of popular etymological specu- 
lation ; but, on the other hand, they are more secure than 
other words from the modifying influences of grammatical 
inflection. 

One class of names is of especial value in investiga- 
tions relating to primeval history. The river-names, 
more particularly the names of important rivers, are 
everywhere the memorials of the very earliest races. 
These river-names survive where all other names have 
changed ; they seem to possess an almost indestructible 
vitality. Forms may be destroyed, the sites of human 
habitations may be removed, but the ancient river-names 
are handed down from race to race ; even the names of 
the eternal hills are less permanent than those of rivers. 
Over the greater part of Europe — in Germany, France, 
Italy, Spain — we find villages which bear Teutonic or 
Romance names, standing on the banks of streams which 
still retain their Celtic appellations. Throughout the 
whole of England there is hardly a single river-name 
which is not Celtic. 

The Celtic words which appear in the names of rivers 
may be divided into two classes — one meaning simply 
water or river, the other describing it by some additional 
word, meaning rough, gentle, smooth, white, black, red, yel- 
low, crooked, broad, swift, muddy, clear, and the like, com- 



120 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

bined with which they form the names of almost all rivers 
in England. 

At a time when no great intercommunications existed, 
and when books and maps were unknown, geographical 
knowledge must have been very slender. Hence whole 
tribes were acquainted with only one considerable river, 
and it sufficed, therefore, to call it " The Water," or " The 
River." Such terms were not proper names in the first 
instance ; they only became so on the advent of foreign 
conquerors who, unacquainted with the language, mistook 
for a geographical name a common appellation, mispro- 
nouncing it in various ways, in various quarters, for many 
generations, until at last the original import of such names 
faded away, or became disguised in the lapse of ages. 
Take the word afon for instance. This is the usual Welsh 
term for a river. On the map of Wales we find the Afon 
Llugwy, which tourists call the " River Llugwy." So also 
we find the Afon Lledr, the Afon Dulas, the Afo7i Dyfi. In 
England, however, the word afon or avon, as it is usually 
written, is no longer a common name as it is in Wales, 
but has become a proper name, of which there are many in 
the island. There is a Stratford Avon, a Bristol Avon, a 
Little Avon, and many other rivers of that name in more 
or less corrupted forms, as the Evan, the Ive, the Aune, 
the Auney, which is the Celtic diminutive for Little Avon, 
and which we find also in the Ewenny, the Inney, and the 
Aney. In the Manx language afon is written aon ; and in 
Gaelic, abhainn (pronounced avain). In Ireland we find 
it in the compound forms of Aven-gorm, Aven-banna, Aven- 
bui, Aven-more, etc. 

Another word, diffused nearly as widely as afon, is the 
Welsh dwr, " water," which, variously pronounced, we 
find in the Dour, the Dore, the Duir, the Durra, the Dur- 
beck, the Glasdur, or " gray water," the Calder, or " wind- 
ing water," the Rother (Rhuddwr), or " red water," and the 
Derwent, from dwr-gwyn, " the clear water," of which name 
there are four rivers in England, and of which the Darwen, 
the Derwen, the Darent, and the Dart are only contrac- 
tions. 1 

The Gaelic and Erse word for " water " is, as we have 
seen, uisge. This root, subject to various phonetic muta- 

1 That the Darent was anciently the Derwent is shown by the name Der- 
ventio, the Roman station on the Darent. The further contraction into the 
form Dart is exhibited in the name of Dartford, the modern town on the same 
river. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 121 

tions, is found in the names of a vast number of rivers. In 
nine it takes the form of esk; then there is an Esky, an 
Esker, and an Eskle ; an Ise and an Isebourne ; an Ease and 
an Easebourne ; an Ash and an Ashbourne. The same word 
is represented in Welsh by gwy or wy, " water," and by 
wysg, "a current." In Wales there is a river which the 
Welsh call the Wysg, and the English call the Usk. This 
form usk is found as ux in Uxbridge ; as ex in Exmoor, 
Exmouth, Exeter ; and as ax in Axmouth, Axbridge, Ax- 
minster. The Use, the Ouse, the 0«.ytf/, and the Ouseburn 
come from the Gaelic uisge, whereas the Wish, the Wash, 
and the Guash seem to be derived from the Welsh Wysg, 
with the same meaning. From the closely related Welsh 
word gwy or wy, " water," we may derive the names of 
Wye, of which there are half a dozen in England. The 
Llugwy, " clear water," the Mynwy, " small water," the 
Garway, " rough water," the Dowrddwy, " noisy water," 
the Elwy, " gliding water," the Conway, " chief water," 
the Sowy, the Edwy, the Onwy, the Olway, the Vrynwy are 
all in Wales ; the Medway is in Kent, and the So/way on 
the Scottish border. The Solent was anciently called jyr 
«/j/^, " the channel " ; and the Isle of Wight was ynys yr 
wyth, " the Isle of the Channel," from which the present 
name may possibly be derived. 

It probably has been noticed in the word Durbeck, 
which is the name of a river in Nottinghamshire, that 
only the first syllable is Celtic, whereas the second is de- 
cidedly Teutonic, being the Danish bee or the Dutch beek, 
"a stream, a rivulet." Such combinations are by no 
means rare in English geographical names, and the rea- 
son may be easily explained. When the same territory 
is occupied successively by nations speaking different lan- 
guages, the original word for "water" or " river," used 
as a common name by the earliest settlers, is apt, as we 
have seen, to be mistaken for a proper name, to which, in 
course of time, another word for " river," or for " water," 
is likely to be superadded. This process of superimposi- 
tion may have been repeated again and again by succes- 
sive tribes of immigrants, and thus ultimately may have 
been formed the strange aggregations of synonymous syl- 
lables which we find in so many river-names in England. 
In the case of Durbeck, the first syllable is the Celtic dwr, 
" water." The Teutonic colonists, on hearing the word, 
which conveyed to their mind no meaning whatsoever, 
added the term beek to it, which, variously written beck, bee, 
10 



122 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

bcec, or beckr, according as in later times it was supposed 
to be derived from the Dutch, Friesic, Norse, or Danish, 
has given the forms Durbeck, Cambeck, Foulbeck, Fulbeck, 
Hollenbeck, Welbeck, Whitbeck, and others. In the names 
of the Eskwater and the Dourwater we have the Dutch 
addition water to the Celtic roots esk and dzvr ; while 
the Isbourne, the Easeburn, the Ashbourn, the Washburn, 
and the Ouseburn, present the Anglian burne, added to 
various modifications of the Celtic uisge. In the name of 
Wan-s-beck-water we first find waft, which is a corrupted 
form of the Welsh avon. The s is, perhaps, a vestige of 
the Gadhelic uisge. As in the case of the Durbeck, the 
Teutonic beck was added by the Anglian colonists, and 
the Dutch or English word water was suffixed when the 
meaning of Wansbeck had become obscure, and Wansbeck- 
water, or Riverwaterriverwater, is the curious agglomera- 
tion which has resulted. 

As to the descriptive class of word-roots, we have the 
Gaelic rea or rhe, meaning " swift," in the rivers Rey, Ray, 
R/iee, and the Wrey. From the Welsh garw, " rough," 
we obtain the names of the Gara, the Garry, the Garway, 
the Garnar, the Yarrow, and the Yair. From the Gaelic 
all, " white," we obtain al-aon, " white afon," the Allan, the 
Allen, the Allwen, the Ellen, and the A In or Auln. The 
Gaelic and Erse ban, also meaning " white," has given the 
Bann, the Ben, the Bane, the Bain, the Bana, and the Aven- 
banna. The word dhu, " black," appears in five rivers in 
Wales, three in Scotland, and one in Dorset, which are 
called Dulas. Three more are called the Douglas, and an- 
other the Doulas. From llevn, " smooth," we have the 
name of Loch Leven, and of eight or ten rivers called the 
Leven. Deep pools, or lynns, have given names to Lin- 
coln, King's Lynn, Dublin, Glaslin, Linton, Killin, and Ros- 
lin. The word tarn, " spreading, quiet, still," related to 
the Welsh tan and the Gaelic tar, appears in the Thames, 
the Tamar, the Tema, the Tay, the Tavy, and the Tave. 
The word cam, " crooked," we find in the Cam in Cam- 
bridgeshire, the Camil, the Camlad, the Cambeck, and the 
Camlin. Morcambe Bay is "the crooked-sea bay," and 
Camden is the "crooked vale." To the Gaelic clith, 
" strong," we may refer the Clyde and the Cludan in Scot- 
land, the Clwyd and the Cloyd in Wales, the Glyde and 
several other streams in Ireland. 

There are many other clusters of river-names which 
invite investigation, but of which a mere enumeration 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 123 

must here suffice. Such are the groups of names of 
which the Neath, the Soar, the Nay, the Dee, the Tees, the 
Colne, the Frome, and the Humber may be taken as types. 
It is indeed a curious fact that a unique river-name is 
hardly to be found. Any given name may immediately 
be associated with some dozen or half-dozen names nearly 
identical in form and meaning, not only in England, but 
in all parts of Europe. This might suffice to show the great 
value of these river-names in ethnological investigations. 
Reaching back to a period anterior to all history, they en- 
able us to prove the wide diffusion of the Celtic race, and 
the once universal Celtic occupation of the British Isles. 

For antiquity and immutability, the names of mount- 
ains and hills come next in value to the names of rivers. 
The names of these conspicuous landmarks have been 
transmitted from race to race very much in the same way, 
and from the same causes, as the names of rivers. 

The modern Welsh, names for the " head " and the 
" back " are pen and cefn. We find these words in a large 
number of mountain-names. Cefn (pronounced Keven), " a 
back " or " ridge," is very common in local names in 
Wales, as in the case of Cefn Coed or Cefn Bryn. In Eng- 
land it is found in Chevin Hill, Chevening, Chevington, and 
the Cheviot Hills. The Welsh pen, meaning a " head," and 
by metonymy the usual name for a mountain, is widely 
diffused throughout the island. The highest hill in Buck- 
inghamshire is called Pen. We find this root in Penard, 
Penhill, Penshurst, Penrith, Pencoid, Penrhyn, Penrhos, Pem- 
broke, etc. In the northern parts of Scotland, the Cymric 
pen is ordinarily replaced by ben or cenn, which enables us 
to detect by local names the ancient line of demarcation 
between the Cymric and Gadhelic branches of the Celtic 
race. Thus, while in one part the Welsh root pen is found 
in Pen Craig, Penpont, the Grampians, the Pentland Hills, 
the Gaelic ben, which is conspicuously absent from Eng- 
land, Wales, and southeastern Scotland, is used to desig- 
nate almost all the higher summits of the north and west, 
as for instance, Bennevis, Benledi, Benmore, Benlomond, and 
many more, too numerous to specify. Cenn, "a head," 
which is the other Gaelic form of the same word is found 
in Kennard, Kenmore, Kinross, in Scotland ; Kinsale, and 
Kenmare in Ireland. 

Penrhos, a name which occurs in Wales and Cornwall, 
contains the root rhos, " a moor," which is liable to be con- 
fused with the Gaelic ros, which signifies " a prominent 



124 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

rock or headland." We find this root in the names Ros- 
lin, Kinross, Car dross, Montrose, Melrose, Ardrossan, and 
Roscommon. 

The position of ancient Celtic strongholds is frequent- 
ly indicated by the root dun, "a hill fortress," a word 
which is closely related to the modern Welsh word dinas. 
Pen Dinas in Cornwall is now Pendennis. The Romans 
made it dunum. Londunum, the fortified hill on which St. 
Paul's Cathedral now stands, is now written London. Lex- 
don was the Legionis dunum ; Brannodtmum, now Brancas- 
ter ; Moridunum, now Carmarthen, and Taodunum, now 
Dundee, were all British forts occupied by the Romans. 
The same root dun is found also in Dunstable, Dunkeld, 
Dumfries, and Dumbarton, " the fort of the Britons." In 
Ireland we find Dunkalk, Dungannon, Dungarvan, Dunlavin, 
and a score of other names which exhibit this word. The 
Saxons took it from the Celts, but, in accordance with the 
genius of their language, they used it as a suffix instead 
of as a prefix, as is usually the case in genuine Celtic 
names. We have instances in the names of Huntingdon, 
Farringdon, Clarendon, etc. 

The Celtic languages can place the substantive first 
and the adjective last, while in the Teutonic idioms this 
is not allowable. Thus the Celtic Strathclyde and Abertay 
correspond to the Teutonic Clydesdale and Taymouth. 
This usage often enables us to discriminate between 
Celtic and Saxon roots when they happen to be nearly 
identical in sound. Thus Dairy, Dalgain, Dalkeith, Da- 
leaglis, and Dolberry show their Celtic origin in the word 
dol, " a plain," while Rydal, Kendal, and Mardal contain 
the Dutch or Friesian word dal, dael, daal, " a valley." 

The word ard, " high, great," occurs in a vast number 
of Irish names, as Ardagh, Ardglass, Ardfert. In Scot- 
land we have Ardrossan, Ardnamurchar, and Ards. The 
Lizard Point is "the high cape." In combination with 
the word den, " a wooded valley," it gives the name of 
the Forest of Arden. 

The Cymric tre, " a place or dwelling," is a useful test- 
word, since it does not occur in names derived from the 
Gaelic or Erse languages. On the other hand, it enters 
into almost every village-name in Cornwall, and a vast 
number of Cornish territorial surnames. There is an old 
English ditty which says : " By tre, rhos,pol, Ian, caer, and 
pen, you know the most of Cornish men." Rhos, as we 
have seen, is " a moor " ; pwll, " a pool " ; Han, " an in- 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 125 

closure " ; caer, " a heap, a cairn " ; and pen, " a mount- 
ain." 

Jfe is a Celtic word for " district," and is found in 
Manchester, which the Romans called Mancunium, the Me- 
nai straits, the Isle of Man, and several Cornish names. 
Nant, " a valley," is a common root in the Cymric districts 
of the island, as Nantwich, Nantglyn, Nancemellin, " the 
valley of the mill," and Pennant, " the head of the valley." 
From mawr or ^<?r, " great," we have the names of Pen- 
mean-Mawr or Benmore, Avenmore, Glenmore, Kilmore, Dinas- 
more, Dinsmore, Baltimore, etc. The word magh, " a plain 
or field," is found in more than a hundred Irish names, 
such as Armagh, Maghera, Maynooth, etc. This root is de- 
cidedly Gadhelic, and useful, therefore, as a test-word in 
discriminating between the districts peopled by the two 
great branches of the Celtic stock. 

The prefix llan, which originally meant "an inclosure," 
and in later times " the sacred inclosure " or " church," 
and which occurs so frequently in Cornwall, Wales, and 
the border counties, often enables us to detect the spots 
which were the first to be dedicated to purposes of Chris- 
tian worship. The Cymric llan is replaced in Scotland 
and Ireland by the analogous Gadhelic word kil. Origi- 
nally this denoted only a hermit's " cell," though it was 
afterward used to mean the " church," of which the her- 
mit's cell was so often the germ. It is thus that the 
numerous village-names which have this prefix kil pos- 
sess a peculiar interest. They often point out to us the 
earliest local centers from which proceeded the evan- 
gelization of the half-savage Celts ; they direct us to the 
hallowed spots where the first hermit missionaries estab- 
lished each his lonely cell, and thence spread around him 
the blessings of Christianity and of civilization. In Ire- 
land alone there are no less than 1,400 local names which 
contain this root, and there are very many in Scotland 
also, as Kilmore, Kilkenny, Killin, Kilcwn, Kilgwri, Kildare, 
Kilstock, etc. In Wales, and the neighboring counties, a 
few names occur with the prefix kil instead of llan. These 
names may probably be regarded as local memorials of 
those Irish missionaries who, about the fifth century, re- 
sorted in considerable numbers to the shores of Wales. 

In connection with this geographical nomenclature, it 
must be remembered that the Gaelic, the Erse, the Manx, 
and the Welsh are still living languages in the British 
isles. But just as in Brittany the Celtic idiom is now 



126 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

gradually receding before the French language, 1 so a 
similar process has been going on in England for more 
than fourteen centuries. We have documentary evidence 
of this process. The ancient documents relating to the 
parishes north of the Forth exhibit a gradually increasing 
proportion of Teutonic names. In the taxation of the 
twelfth century, only two and a half per cent are Teu- 
tonic ; in the Chartularies, from the twelfth to the four- 
teenth century, the proportion rises to four per cent ; 
and in the tax-rolls of 1554 to nearly twenty -five per cent. 
In the south of England a similar retrocession of the 
Celtic speech may be traced. Thus, in the will of Alfred, 
Dorset, Somerset, Wilts, and Devon are enumerated as 
" Wealhcynne," a term which proves that these countries 
were then thoroughly Celtic in blood and language, al- 
though politically they belonged to the Anglo-Saxon com- 
monwealth. 2 For a long time after, the valleys of the 
Frome and the Bristol Avon formed an intrusive Welsh 
wedge, protruding into the Saxon district. 8 Athelstan 
found Britons and Saxons in joint occupation of the city 
of Exeter. He expelled the former, on account of their 
troublesome disposition, and drove them beyond the Ta- 
mar. Their constant turbulence in places where Celts 
and Saxons lived together often drew upon them more 
severe measures still, and on one occasion Harold, son of 
Godwin, ordered that every Celt found east of Offa's 
Dyke (a vast earthern rampart which served to guard the 
frontiers of Mercia against the Welsh) should have his 
right hand struck off. 4 But even so late as the time of 
Henry II, Herefordshire was not entirely Anglicised, and 
it was only in the reign of Henry VIII that Monmouth- 
shire was first numbered among the English counties. In 
remote parts of Devon the ancient Cymric speech feebly 
lingered on till the reign of Elizabeth, while in Cornwall 
it was the general medium of intercourse in the time of 
Henry VIII. In the time of Queen Anne it was confined 
to five or six villages in the western portion of the county, 
and it has only become extinct within the memory of men 
now living, 5 while the Celtic race has survived the extinc- 
tion of their language with little intermixture of Teutonic 

1 See page 541. 

2 Palgrave, English Commonwealth, vol. i, p. 410. 

3 Archceolog. Journal, vol. xvi. 

4 Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i, p. 231. 
6 Halliwell, Cornwall, pp. 167-174. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



127 



blood. In the west of Glamorgan and part of Montgom- 
ery one may hear now English spoken almost as much as 
Welsh, and in other border counties the English idiom is 
rapidly encroaching. In fact, we may now in those parts 
see in actual operation the same gradual process which for 
centuries has taken place throughout the rest of Britain. 
In Wales, the change of language now in progress is ac- 
companied by very little infusion of Saxon blood. The 
same must also have been the case at an earlier period, 
within Mercia and Wessex, where, in spite of all Saxon 
measures of exclusion, the bulk of the people is admitted 
to be of Celtic blood. The Saxon keels can not have 
transported any very numerous population, and, no doubt, 
the ceorls, or churls, long continued to be the nearly pure- 
blooded descendants of the aboriginal Celts of Britain. 

These theoretical conclusions are thoroughly borne 
out by the evidence of the local names. Throughout the 
whole of England, as we have seen, almost every town- 
name is Celtic; most of the shire-names contain Celtic 
roots, and a fair sprinkling of names of hills, valleys, and 
fortresses bear witness that the Celt was the aboriginal 
possessor of the soil, and was but slow to leave it. A 
large number of the chief ancient centres of population, 
such as London, Winchester, Gloucester, Exeter, Lincoln, York, 
Manchester, Lancaster, and Carlisle, still bear Celtic names, 
while the Teutonic town-names usually indicate, by their 
suffixes, that they originated in isolated family settle- 
ments in the uncleared forest, or arose from the necessi- 
ties of traffic in the neighborhood of some unfrequented 
ford. These facts, taken together, prove that the Saxon 
immigrants, for the most part, left the Celts in possession 
of the towns, and were satisfied with subduing, each for 
himself, a portion of the unappropriated waste. Some of 
the greater British chiefs may have purchased security 
for their people, especially in districts appropriated by 
the smaller bands of adventurers ; and multitudes of Celt- 
ic women must have been retained by the Saxons in mar- 
riage or servitude. It is obvious, therefore, that a very 
considerable Celtic element of population must, for a long 
time, have subsisted side by side with the Teutonic in- 
vaders, without much mutual interference. Occasionally 
even the native Celts became involved in the petty wars 
which different Saxon tribes waged against each other, 
and thus may have obtained some advantageous conces- 
sions. In course of time we find Welsh and Irish eccle- 



128 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

siastics in positions of trust and power among the Saxon 
princes. Asser, the friend and biographer of King Al- 
fred, was a Welshman. What happens now in western 
England took place in those days throughout the whole 
of Britain by the same process of slow assimilation. In 
time the Celts acquired the language of the more ener- 
getic race, and the two peoples, whenever they lived to- 
gether, ceased at last to be distinguishable. 

There is a striking contrast between the characteristics 
of Celtic and Roman local names in England. While the 
appellations of its chief centers of population, and of its 
great natural landmarks — its rivers and its mountains — 
constantly remind us of the original owners of the soil, 
the traces of Roman rule which remain upon the English 
map are surprisingly few in number. Throughout the 
whole island we scarcely find a single place of human 
habitation denoted by a name which is purely Roman. 
The Roman officials, caring but little for foreign geo- 
graphical etymologies, or mistrusting, perhaps, their abil- 
ity of pronouncing Celtic words correctly, wrote down 
the local names as best they could, invariably Latinizing 
their form so as to make them pronounceable in their own 
language, or else replacing them by other names, as 
would best suit their purpose of administration. But 
such is the persistency with which popular and descrip- 
tive names adhere to the soil, that almost all sites named 
by the Britons are still called by the same names which 
they bore at the first dawn of Celtic occupation with but 
little variation. The name of London, for instance, is now, 
in all probability, pronounced exactly as it was at the time 
when Caesar landed on the coast of Kent. The Romans 
attempted to change the name, but in vain. It mattered 
little what the city on the Thames was called in the edicts 
of prefects and proconsuls, the old Celtic name continued 
in common usage, and has been transmitted in turn to 
Saxons, Normans, and Englishmen. It is curious to listen 
to Ammianus Marcellinus, speaking of the name of Lon- 
don as a thing of the past — an old name which had gone 
quite out of use, and given place to the grand Roman 
name of Augusta} 

The character of Roman names, or what remains of 
them, is generally of a military or administrative nature. 

1 Ab Augusta profectus, quam veteres appellavere Lundinium. — Amm. 
Marc, lib. xxiii, cap. 3, § I. Lundinium, vetus oppidum, quod Augustam pos- 
teritas appellavit. — Ibid. t lib. xxvii, cap. 8, § 7. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



129 



Rome, with her eagle eye, could cast a comprehensive 
glance over a province or an empire, and could plan and 
execute the vast physical enterprises necessary for its sub- 
jugation, for its material progress, or for its defense. The 
Romans were essentially a constructive race. We still 
gaze with wonder on the massive fragments of their aque- 
ducts, their bridges, their amphitheatres, their fortresses, 
and their walls ; we still find their altars, their inscrip- 
tions, and their coins. The whole of England is inter- 
sected by a network of Roman roads, admirably planned, 
and executed with a constructive skill which excites the 
admiration of even modern engineers. These are the true 
monuments of Roman greatness. 

The Saxons were not roadmakers. Vast works under- 
taken with a comprehensive imperial purpose were be- 
yond the range of Saxon civilization. The Saxons even 
borrowed their name for a road from the Roman lan- 
guage. The Roman strata, or paved roads, became the 
Saxon streets ; and this word "street" often enables us to 
recognize the lines of Roman road which, straight as an 
arrow-course, connect the chief strategic positions in Eng- 
land. Thus we have Stone Street, Ermin Street, Watling 
Street, Icknield Street, Ryknield Street, and a number of 
other streets. The Westmoreland Mountain, called High 
Street, derives its name from the Roman road which 
crosses it at a height of 2,700 feet. Even where the Ro- 
man roads have become obliterated by the plow, we may 
often trace their direction by means of the names of 
towns, which proclaim the position they occupied in the 
great lines of communication. Such are the names of 
Stratton, Stretton, Stratford, Stretford, Streatham, Streatley, 
Ardiuick le Street, Chester le Street, etc., all of which inform 
us that they are situated on what at one time was a line 
of Roman road. 

The difficulty of traveling in Saxon times must have 
interposed great obstacles in the way of commercial inter- 
course. Local names afford various intimations that the 
art of bridge-building, in which the Romans had excelled, 1 
was not retained by the Anglo-Saxons. Nothing, indeed, 
shows more the unbridged state of the streams than the 
fact that, where the great lines of Roman road are inter- 
sected by rivers, we so frequently find important towns 

1 The importance attached by the Romans to the art of bridge-building is 
indicated by the fact that the chief ecclesiastical functionary bore the name of 
the bridge-builder — Pontifex. See Donaldson, Varronianus, p. 270. 



130 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



bearing the Saxon suffix ford. Thus we have Oxford, Bed- 
ford, Stratford, Stafford, Guilford, Stanford, Woodford, 
Chelmsford, Dart ford, St ape If or d, Wallingford, and many 
other fords, too numerous to mention. Bridgeford sounds 
odd enough, but the name was evidently given to some im- 
portant ford where formerly there was a bridge. This 
great deficiency of bridges in Anglo-Saxon time is still 
more forcibly impressed upon us when we notice that, 
while the names of so many large towns present the suffix 
ford, there are only a very few which terminate in bridge, 
such as Cambridge, Stockbridge, Tunbridge, Uxbridge, Wey- 
bridge, and a few more, all of which stand on small and 
easily-briclged streams. 

The Roman stations throughout England may very 
frequently be recognized by the fact that the modern 
names contain a modification of the Latin word castra. 
These modifications are very curious, as exhibiting the 
dialectic tendencies in different portions of the island. 
Throughout the kingdoms of Essex, Sussex, Wessex, and 
other purely Saxon districts, the form Chester is universal, 
as Chesterford, Colchester, Chichester, Dorchester, Porchester, 
Rochester, Winchester, etc. But as we pass from the Saxon 
to the Anglian kingdoms, we find Chester replaced by 
c aster ) as A least er, Ancaster, Doncaster, Lancaster, Bran- 
caster, Tadcaster, etc. As we pass from East Anglia to 
Mercia, which, though mainly Anglian, was subject to a 
certain amount of Saxon influence, we find cester, which is 
intermediate in form between the Anglian caster and the 
Saxon Chester. The e is retained, but the h is omitted ; 
and there is a strong tendency to further elision, as in 
the case of Leicester, pronounced Lester ; Gloucester, pro- 
nounced Gloster ; Worcester, pronounced Wooster, etc. To- 
ward the Welsh frontier the c or ch becomes an x, and 
the tendency to elision is very strong, as in Uttoxeter, 
pronounced Uxter ; Wroxeter, and Exeter, which in Cam- 
den's time was written Excester. These names on the 
Welsh frontier exhibit a gradual approximation to the 
form which we find in the parts where the Celtic speech 
survives. Here the t also disappears, and we find the 
prefix caer in the names of Caerleon, Caernarvon, Caerwis, 
Caerwent, and the still more abbreviated forms of Carhayes, 
Cardiff, Cardigan, Carlisle, Carmarthen, Carlow, Cardross, 
etc. 

The Latin word colonia is found in the name of Lincoln, 
and perhaps also in that of Colchester. In the immediate 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



131 



vicinity of this town a Roman legion was stationed for 
the protection of the colony. The precise spot which 
was occupied by the camps of this legion is indicated by 
the remains of extensive Roman earthworks at Lexdon, a 
name which is a corruption of Legionis Dunnm. The pro- 
cess by which the modern name of Caerleon has been 
evolved is indicated in the work which bears the name of 
Nennius. 1 

The word port, " a haven, a harbor," which we find 
in Newport, Portsmouth, Portesham, and the like, might 
leave some doubt as to its Latin origin ; but as Portsmouth 
was called Portus Magnus by the Romans, and as the form 
port also appears in Porchester or Portchester, as it was for- 
merly written, in which it evidently refers to the name of 
the place where the castrum was located, we may safely 
derive the root port in all such names from the Latin 
portus, " a harbor." 

So the English word "wall," which has a Teutonic 
appearance, is nevertheless derived from the Latin val- 
lum, "a rampart," naturalized among the Britons, and 
still existing in Welsh in the form gwal, with the same 
meaning. The wall of Hadrian ran from Newcastle to 
Carlisle, and, as we have said elsewhere, is still in won- 
derful preservation. 2 But even if this wall had perished, 
it would be easy to trace its direction by means of the 
continuous series of memorial names which are furnished 
by the villages and farm-houses along its course. It be- 
gan at Wallsend, now famous as the place where the best 
Newcastle coals are shipped. We then come to Benwell, 
Heddon-on-the-Wall, Welton, Wallshiels, Walltown, Thirlwall, 
Oldwall, Wallby, with Wallend and Wallhead at the west- 
ern end. If to all these forms of strat, streat, street, Chester y 
cester, caster, caer, car, coin, port, wall, which are not of very 
frequent occurrence, we add the word " mile," which is 
derived from the Latin mille passus or mille passuum, " a 
thousand paces," the Roman measure of distance, we have 
about all that remains of five hundred years of Roman 
rule on the map of England. 

In some parts of this work we have had occasion to 
speak of Runes and of Ogham inscriptions ; it may here be 
convenient to explain in detail the nature of this kind of 
writing. 

1 Bellum gestum est in urbe Leogis, quae Brittanice Cair Lion dicitur. — 
Nennius, c. 56. 2 See page 45. 



132 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

At the time when the Roman alphabet was introduced 
by the Christian missionaries into England, some of the 
Teutonic nations had been for several centuries in posses- 
sion of a peculiar alphabet of their own. This ancient 
alphabet was chiefly used by the Scandinavians, the 
Northumbrians, and. the Goths. The characters are 
called Runes, and the alphabet bears the name of Futhorc, 
from the first six runes, 

f y h, h #, k, K, /, u t th, o, r, c. 

The one unsolved problem in the history of the al- 
phabet is the origin of these runes. That they should 
have been independently invented by the Teutons is a 
solution which must be regarded as quite out of the ques- 
tion. The history of the invention of alphabetic writing 
shows the enormous difficulty of such an undertaking. 
It was only through the slow developments of many 
centuries that the united genius of the Phoenicians and 
the Greeks, the two most cultured races of the South, 
succeeded at last in elaborating a pure alphabet out of 
the cumbrous picture writing of the Egyptian Hiero- 
glyphics. That an equivalent result should have been 
attained off-hand by any semi-barbarous Teutonic tribe is 
quite incredible. There are, moreover, such striking re- 
semblances between several of the runes and the corre- 
sponding letters of various Mediterranean alphabets, that 
the mathematical chances against such a series of acci- 
dental coincidences are absolutely overwhelming. On 
these grounds it has been universally admitted that the 
runes must, in some unknown manner, have been derived 
from that one great parent alphabet to which modern 
research has affiliated almost every other alphabet of the 
world. 

Runic inscriptions have been found scattered over a 
vast region, extending from the Danube to the Orkneys. 
The most ancient of these inscriptions are earlier in date 
by at least a thousand years than the most modern. Dur- 
ing this long period a constant development was going 
on, and hence we find that the runes of different countries 
and of different periods present very considerable varia- 
tions. They may all, however, be classified into three 
main divisions — the Gothic, the Anglian, and the Scandi- 
navian. The characteristic runes of these three classes 
are shown in the following table : 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
Table of Runes. \ 



133 



Names. 


Values. 


RUNES. 


IV. 

Alphabet of 

Ulphilas. 


I. 
Gothic. 


II. 
Anglian. 


III. 

Scandi- 
navian. 


fech, feh, fe 


/ 


? P 


b V 


r 


P 


* 


ur, hur 


u 


A n 


h n 


n 


n 


ov 


thorn 


th 


D > \ 


l> 


t> 


A 


8 


asc, sesc, os 


Cly £By 


I * 


PPJ 


* 


A 


a 


rad, rat 


r 


B It 


B 


R A 


K 


P 


cen, kauri 


c, k 


<A 


k 


Y 


K 


fC 


gebo, gifu 


S 


X 


X 




r 


r 


wen 


V, w 


l> 


1> 




We 


v, hv 


hegl, hagal 


h 


NHHH 


N 


* 


h 


h 


nyd, nod 


n 


+ <f 


+ 


+ •> 


N 


V 


is 


i 


1 


1 


1 


I 


1 


yr, ger, ar 


y>g*>j* 


1 H9 


* 


AA 


9 


J 


hie, in, eoh 


ih f /, eo 


V* 


vA 




X 


I 


peorth, perc 


P 


* 


tc c 


K 


n 


IT 


ilix, calc 


a, i, k, x 


y 


Y 




qci 


q 


sigil 


s 


* 


H 


H 


s 


<r 


tir 


t 


f 


f 


t 1 


T 


T 


berc, berith 


b 


* 


B 


B 


K 


P 


haec, ech, eh 


e 


n m 


M 




e 


V 


man 


m 


M 


M 


? Y 


M 


t* 


lagu 


I 


h 


h 


h 


A 


\ 


ing 


ng 


<> 


S 




X 


X 


dag, dseg 


d 


H M 


M 




<(> 


e 


othil 


<?, a 


*R 


ft 




# 


to 



In this table the first column, which is styled the Gothic 
Futhorc, contains the twenty-four primitive runes, which 
are used indifferently in all countries in the earliest in- 
scriptions. 

The second column contains the corresponding runes 



134 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

of the Anglian Futhorc, which is used on the Ruth well 
Cross and on several Northumbrian monuments of the 
seventh and following centuries. It is given as a futhorc 
in sundry manuscripts of the eighth and ninth centuries, 
the earliest form appearing on a sword of the sixth or 
seventh century, which was found in the Thames, near 
London. 

In the third column is given the latest, or Scandinavian 
Futhorc. It attained its final form about the tenth century, 
and contains only sixteen runes. We find it given as a 
futhorc on a slab in the Picts' House at Maeshowe in 
Orkney, and on a twelfth century font at Basrse in Den- 
mark. This Scandinavian futhorc was used in Norway, 
Sweden, Denmark, Orkney, Cumberland, and the Isle of 
Man. On the entrance to the arsenal at Venice may be 
seen one of the sculptured lions which once adorned the 
Piraeus at Athens. The marble is deeply scored with 
Norse runes, which by the aid of photography have been 
deciphered, and prove to be a record of the capture of the 
Piraeus by Harold Hardrada, the Norwegian king, who 
afterward figures in English history, and fell at Stamford 
Bridge. 

The fourth column contains the Mceso-Gothic Alphabet, 
which was compiled in the fourth century by Ulphilas, 
Bishop of the Goths. It is evidently based upon the an- 
cient Gothic futhorc, with two or three additions and 
several modifications derived from the contemporary By- 
zantine alphabet. 

The Scandinavian settlers in Northumbria, Cumbria, 
and the Isle of Man, having left behind them so many 
runic records of their presence, it may seem strange that 
not a single runic stone should have been discovered in 
the Scandinavian colony of Pembroke, or even in Ireland, 
where Scandinavian chieftains bore sway for many years 
in the cities of Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick. But 
the fact of this remarkable absence of runic monuments, 
in certain regions where they might have been looked 
for, must be taken in conjunction with another circum- 
stance, equally remarkable, that it is exactly in those re- 
gions where the expected runic stones are wanting that 
Ogham writing abounds. This will be explained by the 
fact that the mysterious ogham character, in which the 
most ancient records of Wales and Ireland are written, 
and respecting which so many wild conjectures have 
been made, was originally nothing more nor less than a 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. ^5 

very simple and obvious adaptation of the futhorc to 
xylographic necessities, the individual runes being ex- 
pressed by a convenient notation consisting of notches 
cut with a knife on the edge of a squared staff, instead of 
being cut with a chisel on the surface of a stone. 1 The 
geographical distribution of the ogham inscriptions, 
moreover, raises a strong presumption in favor of the 
Scandinavian origin of the ogham writing ; for it may 
safely be affirmed that where the Northmen never came 
ogham inscriptions are never found. 

The ogham characters in their primitive form proba- 
bly consist of a system of notches on the edge of a squared 
stick or stone. They were afterward written on a plane 
surface, on either side of a central line. The name given 
to this line, druim, shows that it represented the " ridge " 
of the primitive squared staff. 

The arrangement of the oghams, according to the me- 
diaeval Irish tradition, was in four "groups," aicme, each 
group comprising five ogham characters. Thus we have — 

Group i. "i n m mn mttt 

b 1 f s n 

Group II. I 'I HI Mil Mill 
h d t c q 

^OUP HI. - / II HI HI! // /// 
m g ng st r 

Group JV. _| U m— 1^ I i ! 1 1 

a o u e i 

The ogham inscriptions now remaining in England and in 
such parts of Wales and Ireland as were once occupied by 
the Northmen date mostly from the fifth and sixth centu- 
ries. They have been interpreted by the help of bilingual 
specimens in Wales, where they were often supplemented 
by a Latin version, or intermixed with Latin words. 2 

1 Some such method of notation seems to be implied by the words book and 
biich-staben (beech sticks), and may probably be referred to in the often quoted 
lines of Venantius Fortunatus, a sixth century poet, who says : 

Barbara fraxineis pingatur rhuna tabellis, 
Quodque papyrus agit, virgula plana valet. 

2 For more ample details on the subject see Isaac Taylor, Greeks and Goths ; 
a Study on the Runes / Brash, Ogham Inscribed Monuments ; and an Essay on 
the Ogham and Scythian Letters, by Dr. Graves. 



136 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

The name Runic was so called from the term R-dn, 1 which 
was used by the Teutonic nations to designate the mystery 
of writing. The heathen Teutons believed that the runes 
possessed magical influence, that they could stop a vessel 
in her course, divert an arrow in its flight, cause love or 
hatred, raise the corpse from its grave, or cast the living 
into death-slumbers. On account of the idolatrous ven- 
eration with % which paganism invested these runes, the 
early preachers and missionaries of Christianity endeav- 
ored to set them aside, and to introduce the use of Roman 
characters in their stead. It was doubtless from this 
cause that Ulphilas refrained from writing his version of 
the Scriptures in the Runic letters employed by the 
Gothic nations, and adopted a modification of the Greek 
and Latin alphabets. After their conversion to Chris- 
tianity, the Anglo-Saxons adopted the latter, in which 
they were obliged, however, to retain two of the runes, 
because there were no Roman characters corresponding 
to them. One was the old Thorn p, for which the Latin 
mode of expression was th; the other was the Wen p. 

The p was superseded by a double u after the Norman 
Conquest, but the p had a more prolonged career. This, 
and a modified Roman letter, namely D ft, divided the th 
sound between them, the former representing the hard 
sound of th, as in thing, and the latter the soft sound of 
the same letters, as in thine. During the Saxon period 
these were used either without any distinction at all, or 
with very ill-observed discrimination, until they were 
both ultimately banished by the general adoption of the 
th. This change was not completely established until the 
very close of the fifteenth century. And even then there 
was one case of the use of the rune p which was not abol- 
ished. The words the and that continued to be written pe 
and pat or p l . This habit lasted long after its original 
meaning was forgotten. The p got confused with the 
character y at a time when the y was closed a-top, and 
then people wrote " ye " for the and " yat " or " y* " for 
that. This has continued almost to our own times : and 
it may be doubted whether the practice has entirely ceased 
even now. 

1 Runa meant " a whisper " ; and even as late as the thirteenth century we 
find the word used as such in a Moral Ode, in which it is said of the Omniscient 
that— 

Elche rune he ihurft & he wot alle dede. 

Each whisper he hears, and he knows all deeds. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



137 



When in the seventh century the Roman alphabet be- 
gan to obtain the ascendancy over the native runes, the 
latter did not at once fall into disuse. Runes are found 
on gravestones, church crosses, bells, fonts, amulets, rings, 
bracelets, brooches, etc., down at least to the eleventh 
century. The Isle of Man is famous for its Runic stones, 
especially the church of Kirk Braddan. These are Scan- 
dinavian, and are due to the Norwegian settlements of the 
tenth century. For lapidary inscriptions, clog almanacs, 
and other familiar uses, it is difficult to say how long they 
may have lingered in remote localities. In such lurking- 
places a new kind of importance and of mystery came to 
be attached to them. They were held in a sort of tradi- 
tional regard, which at length grew into a superstition. 
They were the heathen way of writing, while the Roman 
alphabet was a symbol of Christianity. Gradually, how- 
ever, they disappeared ; being looked down upon at last as 
fit only for sorcery and magic. 

The Roman alphabet was introduced into England 
from two opposite quarters ; from the northwest by the 
Irish missionaries, and from the southeast by those sent 
from Rome. It is to be remembered that while the An- 
glo-Saxons were pagans and barbarians, Christian life and 
culture had already taken so deep a hold of Ireland that, 
in the time of Augustin, she most actively co-operated 
with him by sending forth missions to instruct and con- 
vert her neighbors. Ireland, indeed, was then the chief 
seat of learning in Christian Europe, and, for a long time 
after, the most distinguished scholars who appeared in 
other countries were mostly Irish by birth, or had re- 
ceived their education in Irish schools. We are informed 
by Bede that in his day — the earlier part of the eighth 
century — it was customary for his English fellow-country- 
men of all ranks, from the highest to the lowest, to retire 
for study and devotion to Ireland, where, he adds, they 
were all hospitably received and supplied gratuitously 
with food, with books, and with instruction. "Such in 
fact," says O'Curry, " were the crowds of stranger-stu- 
dents that flocked to some of our great schools of lay and 
ecclesiastical learning, that they were generally obliged to 
erect a village or villages of huts as near as they conven- 
iently could, and to find subsistence in the contributions 
of the surrounding residents." 1 From these celebrated 

1 O'Curry, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, Lect. iv, vol. ii. 
11 



1 38 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

schools, which had been founded in the beginning of the 
sixth century, went forth bearers of learning to all parts 
of the civilized world, and under their influence education 
made considerable progress in both England and Scotland 
in the seventh and eighth centuries. Out of this revival 
came Albert, the teacher of York school, his pupil Alcuin, 
and also the venerable Bede, who informs us that in his 
time there were monks in England who knew Latin and 
Greek as well as they knew their mother-tongue. Certain 
it is that the Irish, who were called Scots in that century, 
cultivated Greek and Latin literature when other parts of 
the civilized world had ceased to do so, and that they were 
much given to dialectic disputation. There was a living 
scholarship among them, and a genuine speculative spirit. 
It was an Irish scholar, Maeldurf, who taught Aldhelm, 
at Malmesbury, in the seventh century ; and the Greek 
monk, Theodore of Tarsus, was, on his assuming the pri- 
macy of England, surrounded, says Aldhelm, by Irish 
scholars. In those dark days of almost universal igno- 
rance the Irish distinguished themselves by the culture of 
the sciences beyond all the other European nations, trav- 
eling through the most distant lands, both with the view 
to improve and communicate their knowledge ; and while 
almost the whole of Europe was desolated by war, peace- 
ful Ireland, free from the invasions of internal foes, opened 
to the lovers of learning and piety a welcome asylum. 1 

Irish books were written with the Roman alphabet, 
which they must have possessed from an early date, as 
even the oldest manuscripts that have been preserved 
present that kind of lettering with a distinct Hibernian 
physiognomy. Of the two denominations of missionaries 
which from opposite quarters came to England — the Ro- 
man and the Irish — the former gained the ecclesiastical 
pre-eminence ; but the latter for a long time furnished the 
teachers. Hence it was that the first Anglo-Saxon writ- 
ing was formed after the Irish, and not after the Roman, 

1 The glory of this age of Irish scholarship and genius is the celebrated 
Joannes Scotus, or Erigena, as he is as frequently designated — either appellative 
equally proclaiming his true birthplace. He is supposed to have first made 
his appearance in France about the year 845, and to have remained in that 
country till his death, which appears to have taken place before 875. Erigena 
is the author of a translation from the Greek of certain mystical works ascribed 
to Dionysius the Areopagite, which he executed at the command of his patron, 
the French king, Charles the Bald, and also of several original treatises on 
metaphysics and theology. His productions may be taken as furnishing clear 
and conclusive evidence that the Greek language was taught at this time in the 
Irish schools. — J. L. Craik, Manual of English Literature. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



1 39 



model ; and, since the Irish letters had developed forms 
and acquired values unlike those used by the Romans, it 
follows that the value of An- 
glo-Saxon letters and their 
pronunciation must be chief- 
ly found in the Celtic tongue, 
from which these letters are 
taken. The accompanying 
table will exhibit the Anglo- 
Saxon alphabet and its Irish 
models, together with their 
corresponding Roman char- 
acters for reference. Besides 
the above, the symbol 3 was 
employed to represent and, 
and the symbol $ sometimes 
occurs as an abbreviation for 
Sat ; and also f for fat. 1 

The earliest specimens we 
have of the Anglo-Saxon lan- 
guage date from the end of 
the seventh century, and be- 
long to the Anglian dialect 
which, under the political 
eminence of the early North- 
umbrian kings, first attained 
to literary distinction. Of 
this literature, in its original 
form, only fragments exist, 
one of the most interesting of 
which consists of the verses 
said to have been uttered by 
Bede, on his death-bed, to his 
pupil Cuthbert, and preserved 

in a nearly contemporaneous manuscript, of which the fol- 
lowing is a copy, with its translation in modern English : 

1 Five letters of the English alphabet, /, k , q, v, and z, are not found in 
genuine Anglo-Saxon ; but c and cw are invariably placed where k and q would 
be used at present. In the eleventh century the national alphabet gradually 
fell into disuse, and the French style of writing, introduced by the Normans, 
superseded the old Saxon mode of lettering. During the succeeding centuries 
the new character assumed a variety of forms, especially that known as " black 
letter," which at one time was used all over the north of Europe. In Holland 
it was abandoned for the Roman type toward the end of last century ; but in 
Germany and the Scandinavian countries it is maintained up to the present day 
together with the Roman type, the use of which, however, seems destined ere 
long to replace the older forms entirely. 



Irish. 


Saxon. 


Roman. 


A A 


'R a 


a 


to 1> 


B b 


b 


C c 


L c 


c 


6 6 


D b 


d 


€ € 


e e 


e 


T r 


F F 


f 


5 3 


E S 


g 


1) » 


P h 


h 


l 1 


I 1 


i 


l 1 


L 1 


1 


m m 


00 m 


m 


n n 


N n 


n 


* 


O 





p p 


P p 


P 


Tt \y 


R p 


r 


r r 


s r 


s 


C c 


T t 


t 


U u 


U u 


u 




V v 


w 




X x 


X 




Y y 


y 




P V 






D 6 





140 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

Fore the neidfaerae Before the unavoidable journey 

nenig uuiurthit no one is 

thonc-snotturra wiser of thought 

than him tharf sie, than he hath need, 

to ymbhycgannae to consider 

seer his hiniongae, before his departure, 

huat his gastae what for his spirit 

godaes aeththe yflaes of good or evil 

aefter deoth-daege after the death-day 

doemid uuieorthae. shall be doomed. 

Bede died in 735, after having witnessed the intellect- 
ual growth and decline of the Anglian people. Indeed, 
his own name is the only one recorded as eminent for 
scholarship in this portion of the English annals. The 
historian William of Malmesbury affirms that the death 
of Bede was fatal to learning in England, and especially 
to history ; " insomuch that it may be said," he adds, writ- 
ing in the early part of the twelfth century, " that almost 
all knowledge of past events was buried in the same grave 
with him, and hath continued in that condition even to our 
times." " There was not so much as one Englishman," 
Malmesbury declares, " left behind Bede, who emulated 
the glory which he had acquired by his studies, imitated 
his example, or pursued the path to knowledge which he 
had pointed out. A few, indeed, of his successors were 
good men, and not unlearned, but they generally spent 
their lives in an inglorious silence ; while the far greater 
number sunk into sloth and ignorance, until by degrees 
the love of learning was quite extinguished in this island 
for a long time." 

Thus far the country, in its various divisions and sub- 
divisions, as well as its inhabitants, was known under 
various names ; but in the year 827, during the reign of 
Egbert, who was king of the West Saxons from 802 to 
837, the distinction between Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Mer- 
cians, Northumbrians, or by what other names the various 
tribes and fractions of tribes were known throughout the 
island, was formally abolished, and the name of England, 
for the entire country then occupied by them, and that 
of English for all its inhabitants indiscriminately, as well 
as for their language, was proclaimed by royal decree. 1 

1 Hoc vel sequenti anno Egbertius in regem totias Britannia? coronatus 
est. Edixit ilia die, ut insula in posterum vocaratur Anglia, et qui Juti vel 
Saxones dicebantur, omnes communi nomine Angli vocarentur. — Annal. Winto- 
nens, ad anno 827. Qui prius vocati sunt reges Westsaxonum, abhinc vocandi 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



141 



Whether the name was adopted in deference to the in- 
creasing power and numerical superiority of the Angles 
does not appear; but more probably was it a political 
measure to avoid foreign complications such as had al- 
ready threatened before, and might occur again at any 
moment in the disorder of political strife which distracted 
the whole country. Ever since the year 782, when the 
Northumbrian scholar Alcuin joined the court of Charle- 
magne, the latter had taken an uncommon interest in 
English affairs. The costly gifts which he dispatched 
from time to time to the monasteries of England, as of 
Ireland, showed his desire of obtaining influence in both 
countries ; through Alcuin he maintained relations with 
Northumbria; through Archbishop Ethelherd he main- 
tained relations not only with Kent, but with the whole 
English Church. Above all, he harbored at his court ex- 
iles from every English realm. Exiled kings of Northum- 
bria made their way to Achen or Nimeguen, and there, 
too, Egbert, the claimant of the West Saxon throne, had 
found a refuge since Offa's league with Brihtric in 787 
excluded him from it. 

The years which Egbert spent at the court of Charle- 
magne were years of the highest moment in the his- 
tory of the world. The greatness of this monarch had 
reached a height which revived in men's minds the mem- 
ory of ancient Rome ; his repulse of the heathen world, 
which was pressing on from the east, marked him out for 
the head and champion of Christendom ; and on Christ- 
mas-day of the year 800, the shouts of the people and 
priesthood of Rome hailed him as Roman emperor. 
Egbert had probably marched in the train of the Frank- 
ish king to the Danube and the Tiber ; he may have wit- 
nessed the great event which changed the face of the 
world ; and it was in the midst of the peace which fol- 
lowed it, while the new emperor was yet nursing hopes 
of a recognition in the East as in the West, which would 
have united the whole world again under a Roman rule, 
that the death of Brihtric opened a way for the exile's 
return to Wessex. 

The years that had passed since his flight had made 
little change in the state of Britain. With the exception 

sunt teges Anglorum. Radulfi de Dicelo Abbreviat. Chronicor. apud Twysden, p. 
449, ad anno 828. Egbertus coronatus est rex totius Britannise apud Wentoni- 
am faciens edictum, ut omnes Saxones Angli dicantur et Britannia Anglia. 
Chronol. Augustineus. Cant, apud Twysden, p. 2238, ad anno 827. 



I 4 2 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

of Offa's completing his Mercian realm by the murder of 
the East Anglian king Ethelbert, and the seizure of his 
land, English history at this point is little more than a 
blank. All dreams of ambition at home seem to have 
been hushed in the sense of a common danger, as men 
followed step by step the progress of the new ruler of 
Western Christendom. Charlemagne had remained to 
the last on terms of peace and friendship with Offa ; but 
the death of the Mercian king, the war of Mercia with 
Kent, and the murder of King Ethelred by the Northum- 
brian thegns afforded, in 796, an opening for intervention 
which seems to have been arrested only by the persuasion 
of Alcuin. 1 The danger, though staved off for the time, 
must have preyed upon English minds when, four years 
later, Charlemagne mounted the Imperial throne. His 
coronation as emperor had for the English a meaning 
which must have deeply impressed them. Britain had 
been lost to the Roman empire in the hour when the rest 
of the western provinces were lost ; and to men of that 
day it would seem natural enough that the island should 
return to the empire, now that Rome had risen again to 
more than its old greatness in the West. Such a return, 
we can hardly doubt, was in the mind of Charlemagne, 
and the revolutions which were distracting the English 
kingdoms told steadily toward it. The utter ruin of the 
Saxon power on the continent, moreover, rendered it ad- 
visable to the Saxons of England to avoid complications 
such as might possibly arise from an identity of name 
which in former days, as we have seen, prevented Pope 
Gregory the Great from distinguishing between cismarine 
and transmarine Saxons, and it is not unlikely that this con- 
sideration, as well as the circumstances that led to it, 
may have had a great deal to do with the adoption of the 
names of English and England, as more suitable to pro- 
claim to the world at large a distinct nationality for all the 
inhabitants of England, possibly divided on minor ques- 
tions, but having nothing in common with the Saxons of 
continental Europe. 

1 On the news of the murder, Carolus .... in tantum iratus est contra 
gentem illam, ut nit, perfidam et perversam, et homicidam dominorum suorum, 
pejorem earn paganis existimat ; ut, nisi ego intercessor essem pro ea, quicquid 
eis boni abstrahere potuisset et mali machinari, jam fecisset. Alcuin to Offa, 
between April and July, 796. Stubbs and Haddan, Councils, iii, p. 498. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



143 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE DANES IN ENGLAND. 

For more than a century and a half nearly the whole 
of South Britain had borne the name of England, and the 
nation was deeply suffering from the effects of a long suc- 
cession of miserable contests, sometimes between one 
state and another, sometimes between adverse factions in 
the same state, having in either case the rancorous char- 
acter of civil strife, when suddenly they were attacked by 
a foreign foe whose civilization was as far below their 
own as theirs had been, four centuries previously, below 
that of the conquered Britons ; and whose successful in- 
vasions not only checked their progress as a nation, but 
nearly replunged them into their original barbarism. 
These piratical hordes, called Danes or Norsemen by the 
English, 1 and Normans by the French, were not merely 
natives of Denmark, properly so called, but belonged also 
to Norway, Sweden, and other countries spread round 
the Baltic Sea. They were offshoots of the great Scandi- 
navian branch of Teutons who, under different names, 
conquered and recomposed most of the states of Europe 
on the downfall of the Roman empire. Such of the Scan- 
dinavian tribes as did not move to the south to establish 
themselves permanently in fertile provinces, but remained 

1 At first the English called them Ostmenn, that is " Eastmen." Then 
again we find them called Markemenn, which seems to convey the idea of their 
coming from Denmark. Vocantur autem usitato more Marcomanni gentes un- 
dique collectse, quae Marcam incolunt. Sunt autem in terra Slavorum Marcae 
quam plures, quarum non infima nostra Wagirensis est provincia, habens viros 
fortes et exercitatos procliis tam Danorum, quam Slavorum. — Helmoldi Chron. 
Slav., i, 65. Tempore quo Normannorum gens universas Gallias devastabat, 
universam Franciam rex Karolus gubernabat. Sed non valebat eis resistere, 
quin longe lateque fines regni sui devastarent Marchomanni. Vita S. Genul- 
phi, post ann. 900 ; literas, quibus utuntur Marcomanni, quos nos Nord??iannos 
vocamus, infra scripta habemus.— Hraban. Maur., de inv. ling, apud Goldast, 
2, 67. Ascomenn is another name for these northern pirates. Piratae, quos illi 
Withingos appellant, nostri Ascomannos. Ad. Brem. de Situ Dan., c. 212. The 
Angles called them Hcedhenas ; the Friesians, Hedhena ; the Dutch and Franks, 
Heidenen, that is, " Heathens." . But the general name under which they re- 
mained known in England was Deniscan, " Danes." 



144 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

on the barren soil and bleak regions of the north, devoted 
themselves to piracy as a profitable and honorable profes- 
sion. The Saxons themselves had done this in the fourth 
and fifth centuries, and now in the ninth century they 
were becoming the victims of their old system, carried 
into practice by their kindred, the Danes, Swedes, 
Norwegians, and others. All these people were of the 
same race as the Saxons, being an after-torrent of the 
same fountain-head; and though time, and a change of 
country, religion, and general mode of life on the part of 
the English had made some difference between them, the 
common resemblance in physical appearance, and even 
of language and other essentials was still strong. 

The piratical associations of the Northmen, though 
similar to those of the various Saxon tribes of former 
times, partook in the ninth century rather of the nature 
of our privateering companies in time of war, and still 
more closely resembled the associations of the Corsairs of 
the Barbary coast, who, up to the early part of this cent- 
ury, crossing the Mediterranean as the Danes and Nor- 
wegians did the German Ocean and the British Channel, 
for many ages plundered every Christian ship and coun- 
try they could approach. The Scandinavian govern- 
ments at home, such as they were, licensed the depreda- 
tions and shared the spoils, having a regularly fixed 
portion allotted them after every successful expedition. 
On certain great occasions, when their highest numerical 
force was required, these governments themselves took 
active part, and were known to make very extensive 
leagues. As the Saxons of old, so the Danes, the Norwe- 
gians, and all the Scandinavians were familiar with the 
sea and its dangers, and the art of war was cultivated 
among them far more extensively than by any other na- 
tion at that time. The astonishing success of these people 
in England and France, and later in Italy and Sicily, not 
only proves their physical vigor, their valor and persever- 
ance, but also their military skill and a remarkable degree 
of intellect, which contrasted strangely with their savage 
instincts and their innate brutality. Their religion and 
their literature, some of which dates back as far as the 
eighth century, were subservient to their ruling passions 
for war and plunder ; or, more properly speaking, they 
were both cast in the mold of those passions, and stamped 
with the impress of the national character. The blood of 
their enemies in war, and a rude hospitality, with a bar- 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 145 

barous excess in drinking, were held to be the incense 
most acceptable to their god Woden, who himself had 
been, perhaps, nothing more than a mighty slayer and 
drinker. War and feastings were the constant themes of 
their skalds and bards; and what they called their his- 
tory recorded little else than piracy and bloodshed. Tor- 
ture and carnage, greed of danger, fury of destruction, 
the obstinate and frenzied bravery of an overstrung tem- 
perament, and the unchaining of butcherly instincts, meet 
us at every page in the old Sagas. Even their ideal 
woman is a cold, heartless, bloodthirsty wretch. Thus 
the daughter of a Danish earl, seeing Egil taking his seat 
near her, repels him with scorn, reproaching him with 
" seldom having provided the wolves with hot meat, with 
never having seen for a whole autumn a raven croaking 
over the carnage." But Egil seized her, and pacified 
her by singing, " I have marched with my bloody sword, 
and the raven has followed me. Furiously we fought, 
the fire passed over the dwellings of men ; we slept in 
the blood of those who kept the gates." 1 From such 
table-talk, and such maid's fancies, one may judge of the 
rest. 

Like their brothers the Saxons, the Danes were not at 
one time very bigoted or very intolerant to other modes 
of faith ; but when they came to England they were em- 
bittered by recent persecutions. The remorseless cruelties 
practised by Charlemagne from the year 772 to 803 upon 
the pagan Saxons settled on the Rhine and in Westphalia, 
to whom he left no other alternative but death or a Chris- 
tian baptism, and whom he massacred by thousands, even 
after they had laid down their arms, were the cause of 
the fearful reaction and the confirmed idolatry of that 
people. Those that could escape had fled to Jutland, See- 
land, Funen, and the islets of the Cattegat, where the 
people, still unconverted, gave a friendly reception to 
brethren suffering in the cause of Woden. All these 
joined largely in the expeditions against England, and 
they treated as renegades the English who had forsaken 
the faith of their common ancestors, to embrace that of 
their deadly enemies. A sort of religious and patriotic 
fanaticism was thus combined in the Scandinavians with 
the fiery impulsiveness of their character, and an insatia- 
ble thirst for gain. They shed with joy the blood of 

1 H. A. Taine, Histoire de la Litterature Anglaise. 



146 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

priests and monks, 1 were especially delighted at pillaging 
the churches, and stabled their horses in the chapels of 
the palaces. 2 When they had devastated and burned 
some district of the Christian territory : " We have sung 
them the mass of lances," said they mockingly ; " it com- 
menced in the morning, and lasted until night." 8 

In three days, with an east wind, the fleets of Denmark 
and Norway, consisting of two-sailed vessels, could reach 
the south of Britain. The soldiers of each fleet obeyed 
in general one chief, whose vessel was distinguished from 
the rest by some particular ornament. The same chief 
commanded when the pirates, having landed, marched in 
troops on foot or on such horses as they could capture. 
His title was that of king ; but he was king only on the 
seas and on the battle-field ; for in the hour of the banquet 
the whole troop sat in a circle, and the horns, filled with 
beer, passed from hand to hand without any distinction of 
first man or last. The sea-king was everywhere faithfully 
followed and zealously obeyed, because he was always 
renowned as the bravest of the brave, as " one who had 
never slept under a smoke-dried roof, who had never 
emptied a cup seated in the chimney-corner." 4 He could 
guide his vessel as the good horseman his steed, and to 
the prestige of courage and skill were added, for him, the 
influence created by superstition, for he knew the mystic 
characters which, engraven upon swords, secured the 
victory, and those which, inscribed on the poop and on 
the oars, preserved vessels from shipwreck. 5 Under such 
a chief the men bore lightly their voluntary submission 
and the weight of their mailed armor, and they laughed 
at the wind and waves that failed to do them harm. " The 
strength of the tempest," they sang, "aids the arm of the 
rower ; the storm is our servant ; it throws us where we 

1 Clerici et monachi crudelius damnabantur. — Hist. S. Vincentii apud Script. 
rer. Normann, p. 61. 

2 Aquisgrani in capella regis equos suos stabulant. — Chronicon Hermanni 
Contracti, apud Script, rer. Gallic et Francic, vol. viii. 

3 Attum odda messu. — Olai Wormii, Litteratura runica, p. 208. 

4 Sub idem quoque tempus multi Danise Norvegiseque reges Svioniam de- 
prsedabantur, nee non plurimi reges maritimi {Dcener Nordmenn oc mcegir See- 
kongar) validis suffulti copiis, ac nullo licet peculiari'regnorum dominio gauden- 
tes. Proinde is merito rex maritimus (Scekonga?) appellabatur, qui sub fuligi- 
noso tigno somnum nunquam capiebat, nee ante focum ex cornu potare solitus 
erat. — Yuglinga Saga, cap. xxxiv. Heimskringla edr Noregs Konunga sogor af 
Snorra Sturlusyni, i, 43. 

6 Sig-rtinar, the runes of victory. Brim-rtinar, the runes of the waves. 
Edda Samundar hinus ftdda, ii, 195. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



147 



want to go." 1 Thus the name of sea-king was only a mili- 
tary title, and had nothing in common with that of kong, 
meaning " chief," and borne by the numerous petty kings 
that ruled in the various Scandinavian kingdoms. 

In speaking of kings and kingdoms, we use words of 
swelling sound and magnificent import. Splendor, exten- 
sive dominion, pomp and power are the majestic images 
which arise in our minds when we hear of thrones. But 
we must dismiss from our thoughts the fascinating ap- 
pendages of modern royalty, and rather think of our In- 
dian chiefs, when we contemplate these petty sovereigns 
of the North. Some of their kingdoms may have equaled 
an American county in extent, but many would have been 
rivaled by our towns. Having neither cities nor fortified 
posts, and only surrounded by a small band of followers, 
they often became the prey of each other; sometimes 
even the victims to some coup de main of other pirates who 
assailed them. This early state of things continued until 
the latter part of the ninth century, when Eric in Sweden, 
Gormo in Denmark, and Harald Harfager in Norway, 
subdued all these petty kings in their respective countries 
and united them into three separate monarchies. 

The second class of these high-titled individuals were 
sovereigns who neither possessed country nor ruled over 
regular subjects, and yet filled the regions adjacent with 
misery and terror. They were a race of beings whom all 
Europe beheld with horror. Without a square yard of 
territorial property, without any towns or visible people, 
with no wealth but their ships, no force but their crews, 
and no hope but from their swords, the sea-kings 2 of the 
North swarmed on the boisterous ocean, and plundered in 
every district they could approach, sometimes amassing 
so much booty and enlisting so many followers as to be able 
to assault even whole provinces for permanent conquest. 
They were generally the younger sons of the kings in 
question, the elder remaining at home to inherit the gov- 
ernment. The former were left to seek their fortune on 
the ocean, and to wield their scepters amid the turbulent 

1 Marinas tempestatis procella nostra remigiis, nee removet a proposito 
directse intentionis ; quibus nee ingens mugitus coeli nee crebri j actus fulminum 
unquam nocuerunt, favente gratia elementorum. — Hist. S. Edmundi auctore 
Abbone Jioriac. abbate, apud Surium in Vit. Sanctor. Novemb. 20, vi, 441. 

2 Kong, Konung, Koning, Kineg, King, meaning " a leader, a chief." The 
first among them sometimes bore the title of Kongakong, that is, " Chief of 
Chiefs." Sce-kong, her-kong, has been accordingly translated by " see-king." — 
Ihre., Gloss. Suio-Gothic. 



148 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

waters. 1 The consent of the northern people entitled all 
men of royal descent who assumed piracy as a profession 
to enjoy the name of "kings," though they possessed no 
property ashore. Hence the sea-kings were the kinsmen 
of the land-sovereigns, and while the eldest son succeeded 
to his father, the rest of the family hastened like petty 
Neptunes to establish their kingdom on the waves ; and if 
any of the former were expelled from their inheritance by 
others, then they also sought a continuance of their dig- 
nity upon the ocean. Their rank, and especially their 
successes, always secured to them abundant crews, and 
the mischief they perpetrated was immense. 

But while these sea-kings operated under a high-sound- 
ing title, there was another set of northern pirates on the 
ocean, far more ferocious, and much less disciplined, 
though to the victims it made very little difference. Not 
only the children of kings, but every man that could 
afford it equipped ships, and roamed the seas to acquire 
property by force. At the age of ten or twelve their 
sons were trained under military tutors in all that could 
make them distinguished pirates. Piracy, among them, 
was not only considered the most honorable occupation, 
but the best field for the harvest of wealth ; nor was it 
confined to the emulation of the illustrious who pursued 
it ; no one was respected who did not engage in it, and 
did not return from sea with ships laden with booty. 2 It 
was therefore well said of the Northmen, by one of their 
contemporaries, that they sought their food by their sails 

1 Exuberantes atqae terram, quam incolunt, habitare non sufficientes col- 
lecta sorte multitudine pubescientum, veterrimo ritu, in externa regna extru- 
duntur nationum, ut adquirant sibi prseliando regna, quibus vivere possint pace 
perpetua. Dudo de Saint-Quentin, De motib. et actis Norman, due, p. 62. 

Dani tantis adoleverunt incrementis, ut dum repletae essent hominibus in- 
sula, quam plures sancita a regibus lege cogerentur de propriis sedibus migrare. 
Quae gens idcirco sic multiplicabatur, quoniam nimio dedita luxui mulieribus 
iungebatur multis. Nam pater adultos filios cunctos a se pellebat, prater unum, 
quern heredem sui iuris relinquebat. — Guillaume de Jumieges, Histor. Normann. % 
lib. i, cap 4. 

" Costume fu jadis lone tens 

En Danemarche, entre paens, 

Kant horn aveit plusors enfanz, 

E il les aveit norriz granz, 

Un des fils reteneit par sort, 

Ki ert son her empres sa mort, 

E cil sor ki li sort torneit, 

En altre terre s'en aleit." — Roman de Rou., i, v. 208, etc. 
5 Mos erat magnorum virorum regum vel comitum, aequalium nostrorum, 
ut piraticae incumberent, opes ac gloriam sibi acquirentes. — Vatzdaela, ap. Bar- 
tholin., p. 438. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



149 



and inhabited the seas. 1 The name by which this class of 
pirates was known was Vikingr, which originally meant 
" kings of the bays," for it was in the bays that they am- 
bushed to dart upon the passing voyager. The recesses 
of the shores afforded them a station of safety from the 
perils of the ocean, and of advantage in their pursuit. 
Our bolder navigation, which selects in preference the 
open sea, was then unusual. In those days merchant-ves- 
sels coasted wherever it was possible, and therefore gen- 
erally came in sight of those bays, which often were full 
of this class of pirates, ready to dart upon their prey. 

The ferocity and useless cruelty of this race of beings 
almost transcend belief. The piracy of the Vikingr was 
an exhibition of every species of barbarity. Some of them 
cultivated paroxysms 01 brutal insanity. These were the 
Bersekir, whom many authors describe. When a conflict 
was impending, or a great undertaking was about to be 
commenced, they abandoned all rationality upon system ; 
they studied to resemble wolves or mad dogs, bit their 
shields, howled like wild beasts, stirred themselves up to 
the utmost frenzy, and then rushed to every crime and 
horror which the most frantic enthusiasm could perpe- 
trate. Their fury was an artifice of battle like the war- 
whoops of the Indians, and in this, as in their barbarous 
daring and cruelty, they much resembled the latter; for 
the rest, their leading characteristics were much the same 
as those of the Saxons three centuries previous. 

It was in the latter part of the eighth century that 
these people commenced to plague the English coasts. 
This they kept up at intervals for nearly a century, until 
at last, seeing that the country was not in condition to re- 
sist them, they fitted out large expeditions which, in 
course of time, overran almost the entire island, carrying 
with them death and destruction, and leaving nothing but 
ruin and misery in their trail. Priest, monk, nun, youth, 
old age, nothing was sacred to them. What they looked 
for was gold and silver, and they sought it especially in 
the monasteries and churches. Northumbria became a 
waste. What could not be removed was set on fire, and, 
with but rare exceptions, the whole Anglian literature 
perished in the flames. All that could leave fled before 

1 Nigellus, who wrote about about 826, has left a poem on the baptism of 
Harald, in which he says : 

" Ipse quidem populus late pernotas habetur, 
Lintre dapes quasrit, incolitatque mare." 



150 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

the fury of the Danes, and those who remained reverted 
almost all to their old heathen customs and practices. 
Civilization went back three centuries ; men forgot every 
art of peace, and what little learning and culture there 
was among the people became extinguished, even in those 
parts which hitherto had been the most enlightened. 

This is the way it began. One day in 787, a body of 
men of unknown race entered, in three vessels, a port on 
the eastern coast where now is Portland. 1 They probably 
came in the guise of traders, as they were wont on such 
occasions. In order to learn whence they came, and what 
they wanted, the Saxon magistrate of the place proceeded 
to the shore where they had landed. The strangers let them 
quietly approach ; then, surrounding him and his escort, 
they fell suddenly upon them, killed them, and, after plun- 
dering the town, returned with their booty to their ships, 
and immediately set sail. 2 Six years after a similar rob- 
bery took place on the Northumbrian coast, but on a 
much larger scale. Then the pirates were not further 
heard of for many years, until in 832 and the year follow- 
ing, when they were seen hovering along the southern 
and eastern coasts in large numbers, making descents 
here and there, and doing considerable mischief. It was, 
however, only in the year 835 that the first great army of 
Danish corsairs directed their course toward England, 
and landed on the coast of Cornwall. The ancient in- 
habitants of that country, reduced by the English to the 
hard condition of tributaries, joined the enemies of their 
conquerors, either in the hope of regaining some small 
portion of their liberty, or simply to gratify the passion 
of national revenge. The northern invaders were re- 
pulsed, and the Britons of Cornwall remained under the 
Saxon yoke ; but, shortly afterward, other fleets brought 
the Danes to the eastern coast in such numbers that no 
force could prevent them from penetrating into the heart 
of England. They ascended the great rivers until they 
found a commodious station ; then they quitted their 
barks, and moored them or drew them aground; then, 
scattering themselves over the neighboring country, they 

1 Cuomon serest iii scipu Notdhmanna of HcBtedha lande .... Thaet wae- 
ron tha serestan scipu Dceniscra monna the Angelcynnes lond gesohton. — An- 
glo-Saxon Chronicle, ad ann. 787. Eo etiam tempore primum tres naves Nor- 
mannorum, id est Danorum, applicuerunt in insula, quoe dicitur Portland. — 
Asserius, de Alfredi Gestis. 

2 Henrici Huntind., Hist. lib. IV, aptid rer. Anglic Script. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 151 

carried off all the beasts of burden, and, as the chronicles 
of that day express it, from mariners they became horse- 
men. They at first confined themselves to plundering 
and retired immediately, leaving only some military posts 
and small intrenched camps on the coasts to cover their 
speedy return ; but soon, changing their policy, they fixed 
their residence in the country, and became masters of the 
soil and of the inhabitants, driving the English popula- 
tion of the northeast toward the southwestern part of the 
island, as the Saxons had formerly driven the British 
population from the British Channel to the opposite sea, 
a.d. 838 to 865. 

In the year 866, the most numerous fleet that had ever 
sailed from Denmark on a distant expedition left for Eng- 
land, under the command of eight kings and twenty iarls, 1 
who landed their troops on the southern part of the coast 
appertaining to East Anglia. Unable to repel so formida- 
ble an armament, the people of that country received the 
Danes in a pacific manner. The latter profited thereby in 
acquiring supplies of provisions, collecting horses, and 
awaited reinforcements from beyond sea ; afterward, when 
they felt assured of success, they marched upon York, the 
capital of Northumbria, totally defeating the Saxons, and 
devastating with fire and sword the country they trav- 
ersed (867). Having made themselves masters of a dis- 
trict north of the Humber, and being assured by messen- 
gers of the submission of the rest of the Northumbrians, 
they resolved on maintaining their conquest. They gar- 
risoned York and the principal towns, apportioned estates 
to their companions, without any regard to the rights of 
the native population, and offered an asylum to men of 
all ranks who should arrive from the Scandinavian coun- 
tries to join the new colony. Thus Northumberland 
ceased to be a Saxon kingdom ; it became the rallying 
point of the Danes, who contemplated the conquest of 
the southern portion of England. After three years 
spent in their preparations, the invading army set out. 
Under the conduct of their eight kings, they descended 
the Humber as far as Lindesey, where, having disem- 
barked, they marched from north to south, plundered 
cities, massacred the inhabitants, and, with their national 

1 Iarls, or eorls, according to the Saxon orthography. This is a word whose 
original signification is doubtful, but which the Scandinavians applied to every 
sort of commander, whether military or civil, acting as the lieutenant of the 
supreme chief, called king. 



152 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

fanaticism, they destroyed by fire the Christian churches 
and monasteries, and all books and manuscripts they 
found in them. East Anglia, being in turn completely 
subjected, became, like Northumbria, a Danish kingdom, 
and a point of destination for all emigrant adventurers 
from the north. The Saxon king was replaced by a sea- 
king, and the Saxon population, reduced to a state of 
demi-servitude, lost all property in their territory, and 
henceforth tilled the land for the Danish conquerors. 
The country was now overrun by the latter, and of the 
eight kingdoms first founded by the Saxons and the An- 
gles there remained but one, that of Wessex, which ex- 
tended from the mouth of the Thames to the British 
Channel. 

In the year 871 Ethelred, king of Wessex, died of 
wounds received in a combat fought with the Danes who 
had passed the Thames, and invaded his territory. He 
left several children ; but the choice of the nation fell on 
his brother Alfred, a young prince twenty-two years old, 
whose courage and military skill inspired the Saxons 
with the greatest hopes. Twice already he had succeed- 
ed, either by arms or negotiation, in relieving his king- 
dom from the presence of the Danes ; he repulsed several 
attempts to invade his southern provinces by sea, and for 
seven years maintained the boundary lines of the Thames. 
It is probable that no other army of the Danes would ever 
have overpassed that boundary, had the king of Wessex 
and his people been thoroughly united ; but there existed 
between them germs of discord of a peculiar nature. 

King Alfred was more learned than any of his sub- 
jects. While quite young he had visited the southern 
countries of Europe, and closely observed their manners, 
customs, and institutions ; he was conversant with their 
languages, and with most of the writings of antiquity. 
This superiority of knowledge created in the Saxon king 
a certain degree of contempt for the nation he governed. 
He had small respect for the information or intelligence 
of the great national council, which was called " The As- 
sembly of Wise Men." Full of the ideas of absolute 
power which he had so often read of in Roman writers, 
he was bent on political reforms, and framed many plans 
better in themselves, perhaps, than the ancient Anglo- 
Saxon practices they were intended to replace, but want- 
ing in that essential requisite, the sanction of the people, 
who neither understood nor desired these changes. Tra- 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 153 

dition has vaguely preserved some severe features of Al- 
fred's government ; and long after his death men used to 
speak of the excessive rigor he applied to the punishment 
of prevaricators and dishonest judges. 1 Although this 
severity had for its object the good of the nation, it was 
far from agreeable to a people who, at that time, valued 
freedom of existence more than regularity in the adminis- 
tration of public affairs. 

Thus when, seven years after his election, this learned 
king, unconsciously odious, having to repel a formidable 
invasion of Danes, summoned his people to defend the 
land, he was terrified at finding his subjects but little dis- 
posed to obey him, and even careless about the common 
danger. In vain did Alfred send through the towns and 
hamlets his messengers of war ; few men came, and the 
king was left almost alone with a small number of faithful 
followers and friends whom he enchanted with his learn- 
ing. Favored by this indifference of the nation for their 
chief, the enemy made a rapid progress. Alfred then, 
feeling that he was deserted by his people, deserted them 
in his turn, and the Danish army entered the kingdom 
nearly unopposed. Many of the inhabitants embarked on 
the western coasts to seek refuge either in Gaul or on the 
island of Erin, which the Saxons called Ireland; 2 the rest 
submitted to pay tribute and to labor for the Danes. But 
it was not long before they found the evils of the con- 
quest a thousand times worse than the severity of Alfred's 
reign, which alone could have saved them. Thus they 
regretted their former condition, and even the despotism 
of a king who ruled them with an iron hand, but who was 
born among themselves. 

Alfred, too, reflected on his misfortunes and meditated 
on the means of saving his people, if it were possible, and 
of regaining their favor. Having collected a few friends 
about him, he intrenched himself on a small island near 
the confluence of the rivers Thone and Parret. There he 
led the hard and rugged life reserved, in every conquered 
country, for such of the vanquished as are too proud for 
slavery — that of a freebooter in the woods, morasses, and 
mountain defiles. Such as were tired of the foreign yoke, 
or had been guilty of high treason, in defending their 
family and property against the conquerors, came and put 
themselves under the command of the unknown chief, 

1 Home, Mirror of Magistrates, p. 296. 2 Erin-land, Era-land, Ira-land. 
12 



154 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

who disdained to share the general servitude. After six 
months of a warfare of stratagems, surprises, and of night 
combats, the partisan leader resolved to declare himself, 
to call on the people of the whole western country, and 
to make an open attack, under the Anglo-Saxon standard, 
on the principal camp of the Danes. Before giving the 
decided signal, Alfred wished to observe in person the 
position of the foreigners. He entered their camp in the 
dress of a harper, and diverted the Danish army with his 
Saxon songs, the language of which differed but little 
from their own. 1 He went from tent to tent, and on his 
return, changing his character and occupation, he sent 
messengers through all the surrounding country, and as- 
signed as a place of meeting for all Saxons who would 
arm and fight, a spot a few miles distant from the ene- 
my's camp. During three successive days armed men 
arrived from every quarter, one by one, or in small bands, 
at the place appointed. Some rumors of this agitation 
reached the camp of the Danes, but as there was not a 
single traitor among the Saxons, their information was un- 
certain. It was not long, however, before they saw the 
banner of Wessex bearing down on them. Alfred at- 
tacked their redoubts at their weakest sides, drove out all 
the Danes, and, as the Saxon Chronicle expresses it, " re- 
mained master of the field of carnage." 

Once dispersed, the Danes did not again rally, and Guth- 
rum, their king, did what those of his nation often did when 
in peril — he promised that, if the victors would relinquish 
their pursuit of him, he and his men would be baptized, 
and would retire to the territory of East Anglia to dwell 
there in peace. The Saxon king, who was not strong 
enough to carry on the war to the utmost, accepted these 
proposals for peace (879). Guthrum and the other pagan 
captains swore first on a bracelet consecrated to their own 
gods and then on the cross, that they would in all good 
faith receive baptism. King Alfred officiated as spiritual 
father to the Danish chief, who, putting the neophytical 
white robe over his armor, departed with the wreck of 
his army for the land whence he had come, and where he 
engaged for the future to remain. The limits of the two 
populations were fixed by a definitive treaty sworn to, as 
the preamble set forth, by Alfred, king ; Guthrum, king ; 

1 Danorum Anglicanae loquelae vicina est. — Chronologia rer. sefitentr. apud 
Script, rer. Dame, v, 26. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. ^5 

all the Anglo-Saxon wise men, and all the Danish people. 1 
These limits were, on the south, the course of the Thames 
as far as the Lea, which discharges its waters into the main 
stream not far from London ; on the northeast, the Ouse 
and the great high road constructed by the Britons and 
rebuilt by the Romans, which the Saxons called Wcethlinga- 
street, " the road of the sons of Wasthla." 2 All those por- 
tions of England which were not occupied by the Danes 
thenceforth formed one single state, carrying out practi- 
cally the original plan of Egbert ; and thus disappeared 
forever the ancient division of the English people into 
various peoples, corresponding in number to the bands 
of armed emigrants which had incessantly come from the 
islands and coasts of Continental Europe, and dispossessed 
the Britons. 

And now in turn the same bad faith was shown them 
by the Danes, who, at the first appearance of a fleet of 
pirates on the coast, broke their oath without hesitation, 
and saluted the new-comers as brothers, with whom they 
entered at once upon new expeditions against the Southern 
English, and kept doing so ever after on every chance or 
pretext. Such were the people who, for well nigh two cent- 
uries, made England the object of their incessant depre- 
dations, hovering first on the coasts as mere pirates, making 
descents, now at one point, then at another, throughout the 
whole circuit, and finally establishing themselves perma- 
nently in the heart of the kingdom, and sweeping it in all 
directions with fire and sword, until at last they even suc- 
ceeded in placing their own king upon the English throne. 
Such a state of things was necessarily fatal to the progress 
of civilization and with it to the language ; for though the 
Danes of the tenth century were no longer the low pirates 
of a century previous, and though even during the twenty 
years of the reign of Canute the country enjoyed in every 
way more of the advantages of good government than it 
had done in any previous period of the same length, yet 
this very state of peace and relative prosperity was again 
prejudicial to the vernacular English by favoring a further 

1 iElfred cyning and Gydhrun cyning and ealles Angelcynnes Witan, and 
eal seo theod the on East-Englum beodh. Wilkins, Leges Anglo-Saxon. In 
several Latin instruments Alfred translates his title by the word dux. Ego 
Elfred dux, apud Chart, sub anno 883. — Ley, Gloss. Sax. 

2 The word has apparently this signification ; but it is more probable that 
Wathlinga-street was only the Saxon mispronunciation of the British Gwyddelin- 

sarn, signifying " Road of the Gaels," that is, " the Irish," which is a very likely 
name for a high-road leading from Dover to the Cheshire coast. 



156 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

admixture of words and phrases from the dialects of the 
Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, and other Scandinavian tribes 
then settled permanently and in great numbers on the 
island. 

It would not be correct, however, to attribute the de- 
cline and extinction of the earliest literary civilization of 
the Angles and Saxons wholly to the Danish invasions. 
The Northmen did not make their appearance till toward 
the close of the eighth century, nor did their ravages oc- 
casion any considerable alarm till long after the commence- 
ment of the ninth ; but for a whole century preceding this 
date learning in England appears to have fallen into decay. 
The devastation of the Danes therefore only completed 
what had been begun by the dissensions and confusion 
that attended the breaking up of the original political sys- 
tem established by the Angles and Saxons, and perhaps 
also by the natural decay of the national spirit among a 
race long accustomed to a stirring and adventurous life, 
and now left relatively in undisturbed ease and quiet be- 
fore the spirit of a new and more intellectual activity had 
been sufficiently diffused among them. As it was, this 
was a dark age for England. Schools had almost ceased to 
exist. In the monasteries themselves the thread of learned 
tradition had become very thin, indeed, scarcely discern- 
ible, and if a shining light still burned here and there, it 
only showed more forcibly the depth of the general dark- 
ness. When Alfred was a young man, he could find no 
master in England to instruct him in any of the higher 
branches of learning ; there were at that time, according to 
his biographer, Asser, few or none among the West Sax- 
ons who had any scholarship, or could so much as read 
with propriety and ease. Alfred has himself stated that, 
though some of the English at his accession could read 
their native language well enough, the knowledge of the 
Latin tongue was so much decayed that there were very 
few on his side of the Humber who could understand the 
common prayers of the church, or were capable of trans- 
lating a single sentence of Latin into English ; and that at 
the south of the Thames he could not recollect that there 
was one possessed of this moderate amount of learning. 
This famous passage occurs in a circular preface, ad- 
dressed to the several bishops, and serves as an introduc- 
tion to Alfred's English version of Pope Gregory's Cura 
Pastoralis.. The rare interest of this document, and its 
bearing upon our subject, induces us to quote it in full : 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



157 



Deos boc sceal to wiogora 

CEASTRE. 

Alfred kyning hateS gretan 
WaerferS biscep his wordum lu- 
flice and freondlice ; and $e 
cySan hate Saet me com swiSe 
oft on gemynd, hwelce wiotan 
in waeron giond Angelcynn, 
aegSer ge godcundra hada ge 
woruldcundra ; and hu gesae- 
liglica tida Sa waeron giond An- 
gelcynn ; and hu Sa kyningas Se 
Sone onwald haefdon Saes folces 
on 'Sam dagum Gode and his 
aerendwrecum hersumedon ; and 
hie aegfter gehiora sibbe ge hiora 
siodo ge hiora onweald innan- 
bordes gehioldon, and eac lit 
hiora eSel gerymdon; and hu 
him Sa speow aegtSer ge mid wige 
ge mid wisdome ; and eac Sa 
godcundan hadas hu giorne hie 
waeron segSer ge ymb lare ge 
ymb liornunga, ge ymb ealle Sa 
ftiowotdomas Se hie Gode scol- 
don ; and hu man utanbordes 
wisdom and lare hieder on lond 
sohte, and hu we hie nu sceoldon 
ute begietan gif we hie habban 
sceoldon. Swae claene hio waes 
oSfeallenu on Angelcynne cSget 
swifte feawa waeron behionan 
Humbre $e hiora Seninga cuSen 
understondan on Englisc, oSSe 
furSum an aerendgewrit of Lae- 
dene on Englisc areccean ; and 
ic wene Saet noht monige be- 
giondan Humbre naeren. Swae 
feawa hiora waeron 8aet ic fur- 
Sum anne anlepne ne maeg ge- 
Sencean besuSan Temese Sa 3a 
ic to rice feng. Gode selmihte- 
gum sie Sonc Saet we nu aenigne 
on stal habbaS lareowa. 



THIS BOOK IS FOR WORCESTER. 

King Alfred bids greet bish- 
op Waerferth with his words lov- 
ingly and with friendship ; and 
I let it be known to thee that it 
has very often come into my 
mind, what wise men there for- 
merly were throughout England, 
both of sacred and secular or- 
ders ; and how happy times there 
were then throughout England ; 
and how the kings who had 
power over the nation in those 
days obeyed God and his minis- 
ters ; and they preserved peace, 
morality, and order at home, and 
at the same time enlarged their 
territory abroad ; and how they 
prospered both with war and 
with wisdom; and also the sa- 
cred orders how zealous they 
were both in teaching and learn- 
ing, and in all the services they 
owed to God ; and how foreign- 
ers came to this land in search 
of wisdom and instruction, and 
how we should now have to get 
them from abroad if we were to 
have them. So general was its 
decay in England that there 
were very few on this side of the 
Humber who could understand 
their rituals in English, or trans- 
late a letter from Latin into Eng- 
lish ; and I believe that there 
were not many beyond the 
Humber. There were so few 
of them that I can not remem- 
ber a single one south of the 
Thames when I came to the 
throne. Thanks be to God Al- 
mighty that we have any teach- 
ers among us now. 



It was not till he was nearly forty years of age that 
Alfred himself seriously commenced his study of the 



158 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

Latin language. Before this, however, and as soon as he 
had rescued his dominions from the hands of the Danes, 
and reduced these foreign disturbers to subjection, he had 
exerted himself with his characteristic activity in bring- 
ing about the restoration of letters as well as of peace and 
order. He had invited to his court all the most learned 
men he could discover anywhere in his native land, and 
had even brought over instructors for himself and his 
people from other countries. Werfrith, the bishop of 
Worcester ; Ethelstan and Werwulf, two Mercian priests ; 
and Plegmund, also a Mercian, who afterward became 
archbishop of Canterbury, were some of the English of 
whose superior acquirements he thus took advantage. 
Asser he brought from the western extremity of Wales. 
Grimbald he obtained from France, having sent an em- 
bassy of bishops, presbyters, deacons, and religious lay- 
men, bearing valuable presents to his ecclesiastical supe- 
rior Fulco, the archbishop of Rheims, to ask permission 
for the great scholar to be allowed to come to reside in 
England. And so in other instances, " like the bee, look- 
ing everywhere for honey," to quote the similitude of his 
biographer, this admirable prince sought abroad in all 
directions for the treasure which his own kingdom did 
not afford. 

Up to this time absolute illiteracy seems to have been 
common even among the highest classes of the English. 
When Alfred established his schools, they were as much 
needed for the nobility who had reached an advanced or 
mature age as for their children ; and, indeed, his scheme 
of instruction seems to have been intended from the first 
to embrace the former as well as the latter ; for, accord- 
ing to Asser's account, any person of rank or substance, 
who, either from age or want of capacity, was unable to 
learn to read himself, was compelled to send to school 
either his son or a kinsman, or, if he had neither, a serv- 
ant, that he might at least be read to by some one. The 
royal charters, instead of the names of the kings, some- 
times exhibit their marks, used, as it is frankly explained, 
in consequence of their ignorance of letters. 

This general state of ignorance, however, was not con- 
fined to England alone, and when Alfred tells us that he 
knew no priest south of the Thames who understood the 
meaning of the Latin prayers which he used, he only de- 
scribes a state of things which was then general over 
almost all Christendom ; for though Latin was the uni- 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 159 

versal language of the Church, not one priest in a thou- 
sand, either in France or Spain, could at that time write a 
single letter in the Latin tongue. We must even suppose 
that the language, as used by Alfred, is not intended 
to include monks; for notwithstanding the destruction 
caused by the Danish invasions, many Benedictine monas- 
teries had continued to be centers of a restricted, but not 
the less genuine, study of Latin and the Scriptures. Very 
restricted, however, it must have been, if we are to be- 
lieve Alfred himself, when he refers to " foreigners com- 
ing to England in search of wisdom and instruction, and 
how now they had to get them from abroad if they were 
at all to have them." Indeed, such had been once the 
advanced state of learning and piety among the English 
monks that, after the redemption from idolatry of their 
own people, they sent in turn missionaries to the Conti- 
nent to extend the bounds of Christianity among the Teu- 
tonic races, most of whom were still heathens at the time 
of Pepin, the father of Charlemagne. One of them, 
Winifreth or Boniface, more zealous or more successful 
than the rest, has even been called " the apostle of Ger- 
many." Still, as it was mainly the reform and extension 
of the Church, and only incidentally of the school, that 
engaged his zeal, education among the Dutch and Ger- 
man people, to whose conversion his labors were mainly 
confined, remained in a barbarous state until Charlemagne 
had established schools and a more thorough education of 
the priesthood throughout his dominions. In this he was 
assisted by another English monk, Alcuin of York, who 
was an excellent product of the learning of his time, and 
devoted to his work. Under Alcuin's advice he issued 
instructions for the reform of schools, such as then existed, 
in 787. As this has been justly regarded as a document of 
great significance in the educational history of the period, 
it will be especially interesting to compare the views of 
Charlemagne with those expressed by Alfred on the same 
subject half a century later. It has been thus translated : * 
" Charles, by the grace of God, king of the Franks and 
of the Lombards, and patrician of the Romans, to Bangul- 
fus, abbot, and to his whole congregation and the faithful 
committed to his charge : Be it known to your devotion, 
pleasing to God, that in conjunction with our faithful we 
have judged it to be of utility that, in the bishoprics and 

1 J. B. Mullinger, from the original Latin quoted by Mabillon, part i, c. 9. 



160 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

monasteries committed by Christ's favor to our charge, 
care should be taken that there shall be not only a regular 
manner of life and one conformable to holy religion, but 
also the study of letters, each to teach and learn them ac- 
cording to his ability and the divine assistance. For even 
as due observance of the rule of the house tends to good 
morals, so zeal on the part of the teacher and the taught 
imparts order and grace to sentences ; and those who seek 
to please God by living aright should also not neglect to 
please him by right speaking. It is written, ' By thine 
own words shalt thou be justified or condemned'; and 
although right doing be preferable to right speaking, yet 
must the knowledge of what is right precede right action. 
Every one, therefore, should strive to understand what it 
is he would fain accomplish ; and this right understanding 
will be the sooner gained according as the utterances of 
the tongue are free from error. And if false speaking is 
to be shunned by all men, especially should it be shunned 
by those who have elected to be the servants of the truth. 
During past years Ave have often received letters from 
different monasteries, informing us that at their sacred 
services the brethren offered up prayers on our behalf ; 
and we have observed that the thoughts contained in 
these letters, though in themselves most just, were ex- 
pressed in uncouth language, and, while pious devotion 
dictated the sentiments, the unlettered tongue was unable 
to express them aright. Hence there has arisen in our 
minds the fear lest, if the skill to write rightly were thus 
lacking, so, too, would the power of rightly comprehend- 
ing the sacred Scriptures be far less than was fitting ; and 
we all know that though verbal errors be dangerous, er- 
rors of the understanding are yet more so. We exhort 
you, therefore, not only not to neglect the study of letters, 
but to apply yourselves thereto with perseverance and 
with that humility which is well pleasing to God ; so 
that you may be able to penetrate with greater ease and 
certainty the mysteries of the Holy Scriptures. For as 
these contain images, tropes, and similar figures, it is im- 
possible to doubt that the reader will arrive far more 
readily at the spiritual sense according as he is the better 
instructed in learning. Let there, therefore, be chosen 
for this work men who are both able and willing to learn, 
and also desirous of instructing others ; and let them apply 
themselves to the work with a zeal equaling the earnest- 
ness with which we recommend it to them. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 161 

" It is our wish that you may be what it behooves the 
soldiers of the Church to be — religious in heart, learned 
in discourse, pure in act, eloquent in speech ; so that all 
who approach your house, in order to invoke the Divine 
Master or to behold the excellence of the religious life, 
may be edified in beholding you, and instructed in hear- 
ing you discourse or chant, and may return home render- 
ing thanks to God most high. 

" Fail not, as thou regardest our favor, to send a copy 
of this letter to all thy suffragans and to all the monas- 
teries ; and let no monk go beyond his monastery to ad- 
minister justice, or to enter the assemblies and the voting- 
places. Adieu." 

Instruction, in those days, began about the age of 
seven. The alphabet, written on tables or leaves, was 
learned by heart by the children, then syllables and 
words. The first reading-book was the Latin psalter, 
and this was read again and again until it could be said 
by heart, and any failure on the part of boys to recite 
accurately was severely punished. The psalter was read 
and learned by heart, at first without being understood ; 
and numerous priests, and even monks, were content all 
their lives with the mere sound of the Latin words, 
which they could both read and recite, but did not 
understand. 

Writing followed reading. There were two stages. 
In the first, the boys were taught to write with a style on 
wax-covered tablets, imitating copies set by the master ; 
and in the second, or advanced stage, they learned to 
write with pen and ink on parchment — an accomplish- 
ment highly prized in days when books were multiplied 
by hand-copying. 

The higher instruction generally aimed at giving the 
pupil a knowledge of the seven liberal arts — the trivium 
and quadrivium of the Romano-Hellenic schools. 1 Com- 
pendiums were written and learned ; these, however, 
were very often so dry and brief, that the pupil knew 
nothing more than the name and contents of the Arts 

1 It seems that the course of instruction in the trivium and quadrivium was 
established under Alexander the Great, and that the labors of Isocrates, Aris- 
totle, and Theophrastus stand accredited with much influence in its adoption. 
The trivium included the three formal sciences — grammar, rhetoric, and dialec- 
tic, and furnished the foundation of intellectual education. . The quadrivium 
included arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music — four branches relating 
mostly to nature, and in contrast with the studies of the trivium, which relate 
to human nature or man. — W. T. Harris. 



1 62 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

studies. The instruction was arranged in the form of 
question and answer. 

Such were in substance the methods of study pursued 
under the direction of Alcuin, who occupied at the court 
of Charlemagne a post corresponding to what we now 
should designate Minister of Public Education and of 
Public Worship. He was in some respects an able, and 
certainly a very energetic, man, but his views on educa- 
tion were of a narrow and monastic character. In a letter 
addressed to his imperial patron he enumerates, in the 
fantastic rhetoric of the period, the subjects in which he 
instructed his pupils in the school of St. Martin at Paris. 
" To some," says he, " I administer the honey of the sacred 
writings ; others I try to inebriate with the wine of the 
ancient classics. I begin the nourishment of some with 
the apples of grammatical subtlety. I strive to illuminate 
many by the arrangement of the stars, as from the painted 
roof of a lofty palace." In plain language, his instructions 
embraced grammar, the Greek and Latin languages, as- 
tronomy, and theology. In the poem in which he gives 
an account of his own education at York, the same writer 
informs us that the studies there pursued comprehended, 
besides grammar, rhetoric, and poetry, "the harmony of 
the sky, the labor of the sun and moon, the five zones, the 
seven wandering planets ; the laws, risings, and settings of 
the stars, and the aerial motions of the sea ; earthquakes ; 
the nature of man, cattle, birds, and wild beasts, with their 
various kinds and forms ; and the sacred Scriptures." In 
the dialogues which he made for the son of Charlemagne, 
he uses like formulas the little poetic and trite phrases 
which were the characteristics of the national poetry. For 
instance: " What is writing? The guardian of history. — 
What is speech? The interpreter of the soul. — What 
gives birth to speech ? The tongue. — What is the tongue ? 
The whip of the air. — What is the air? The preserver of 
life. — What is life? A joy for. the happy, a pain for the 
miserable, and for all the expectation of death. — What is 
death ? An inevitable event, an uncertain voyage, a sub- 
ject of tears for the living, a robber of men. — What is 
heaven ? A moving sphere, an immense vault. — What is 
light? The torch of all things. — What is the sun? The 
splendor of the universe, the beauty of the firmament, the 
grace of nature, the glory of the day. — What is the day ? 
A call to labor, etc., etc." More, he ends his instruction 
with enigmas in the spirit of the Skalds, such as we still 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



163 



find in the old manuscripts, together with barbarian songs ; 
and he thus addresses his royal pupil : " As you are a youth 
of good disposition, and endowed with natural capacity, 
I will put to you several other unusual questions : endeavor 
to solve them. — I will do my best ; if I make mistakes, you 
must correct them. — I shall do as you desire. Some one 
who is unknown to me has conversed with me, having no 
tongue and no voice ; he was not before, he will not be 
hereafter, and I neither heard nor knew him. What means 
this ? Perhaps a dream moved you, master. — Exactly so, 
my son. Still another one. I have seen the dead en- 
gender the living, and the dead consumed by the breath 
of the living. Fire was born from the rubbing of branches, 
and it consumed the branches." x This was the sort of in- 
struction young Lewis received from his learned master. 
It was evidently the best his royal father could command, 
and gives us an idea of the methods then universally em- 
ployed in England as well as in France and elsewhere, and 
which, in scientific as well as in religious instruction, pre- 
vailed for centuries after. 

To young men fortunate enough to go beyond the first 
rudiments of knowledge, a certain command of Latin was 
indispensable to understand explanations for which the 
vernacular was utterly inadequate, at a time when dialects 
were numberless, and often varied from one village to 
another. Hence the years devoted to what we now call 
secondary instruction, were mainly taken up by the study 
of the Latin language, when grammar was regarded as 
the basis of all other studies. Indeed, the name of " gram- 
mar school " is still a relic of those days, when grammar 
was the principle of all that could be learned. In the 
court of Charlemagne there was a much-admired painting, 
which represented the seven liberal arts, and in which 
Grammar was represented as the queen, sitting under the 
tree of knowledge with a crown on her head, a knife in 
her right hand with which to scratch out errors, and a 
thong in her left. The thong was supposed to symbolize 
the supremacy of grammar in the schools ; it may, how- 
ever, have symbolized the discipline of the time. For 
England especially this discipline was exceedingly severe. 
The slightest faults were punished with the rod. Degere 
sub virga meant " to receive education." The severity was 
no doubt encouraged by the theory that the devil was 

1 Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation en France, t. ii, p. 191. 



1 64 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

in the hearts of boys, and could be got out only by flog- 
ging. In many monasteries all the boys were periodically 
flogged as a kind of general atonement for sins past and 
possible. Even so late as the fourteenth century we find 
that the ceremony of introducing a schoolmaster to his 
office was presenting him with a palmer (ferule) and rod, 
and requiring him to flog a boy publicly. " Then shall 
the Bedell purvay for every master in Gramer a shrewde 
boy whom the master in Gramer shall bete openlye in the 
Scolys and the master in Gramer shall give the boy a 
Grote for hys labour and another Grote to him that pro- 
vydeth the rode and the palmer," etc. 1 

As we have no specimens of any of the dialects current 
among the Saxon and Angle invaders of Britain for nearly 
three centuries after their settlement in the island, we can 
not tell to what extent these dialects agreed with or dif- 
fered from each other, nor can we be sure whether the 
differences, found at a later period when we can make a 
comparison between northern and southern English, were 
due to original diversity or to subsequent differentiation. 
However, as the dialectal differences, afterward discerni- 
ble, correspond in the main to the areas historically as- 
signed to Angles and Saxons respectively, it may be as- 
sumed that there was some difference of dialect to begin 
with — that of the Saxons corresponding to the Dutch, 
which is still its nearest representative on the Continent, 
and that of the Angles to the Friesian, and through it 
possibly to such Scandinavian dialects as were current in 
the Danish islands, where the Friesians for a long time 
had their colonies, and in Holstein, which they occupied 
in common with the Angles before their conquests in 
Britain. 

The Friesian dialect, which still survives in Friesland, 
in Heligoland, in the islands between the Ems and Weser, 
in part of Sleswick, and in a few localities in Oldenburg 
and Westphalia, was once spoken over a far greater area 
than at present, extending as it did to an uncertain and 
irregular distance inland between the Zuyder Zee to the 
Elbe. These were certainly the parts the Friesians and 
Angles came from ; and it is probably on that ground that 
at one time it was believed that Modern English possessed 
a greater affinity with the Friesian than with any other 
Low Dutch dialect or language. There is certainly some 

1 S. S. Laurie, The Rise and Early Constitution of Universities. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. ^5 

analogy between the Friesian patois, that may be heard 
along the coast and on the islands, with some of the old 
English patois that are yet lingering in some remote 
northern districts along the Scotch frontier, where Frie- 
sian settlements were numerous, but even there the re- 
semblance extends now far more to accent and intonation 
than to the language itself. Bosworth quotes the follow- 
ing specimen of the Friesian dialect, which is part of a 
rustic song supposed to be sung by a peasant on his re- 
turn from a wedding feast, and dates from the middle of 
the seventeenth century, 

" Swiet, ja swiet, is't oer *e miete, 

' 'T ' bodskiere fdar e'jonge lie, 

Kreftich swiet is't, sizz ikjiette, 
* As it giet mei alders rie. 

Mai oars tiget 'et to 'n pleach, 

As ik dan ?ny?i geafeunt seach." 

Gysbert Japix, Friesche Rymlerye. 

which has been thus translated : 

'• Sweet, yes, sweet is over {beyond) measure, 
The marrying for the young lede {people) ; 
Most sweet is it, I say yet {once more), 
When {as) it goes with the rede {counsel) of the elders, 
But otherwise it tends to a plague, 
As I saw on {by the example of) my village fellow." 

Comparing this with the following specimens of Dutch, 
quoted and translated by Bowring, the greater resem- 
blance between the latter language and English will be 
readily apparent : 

"A Is de wyn is in de man, 
Is de wysheid in de kan." 

Tuinman, Spree kwoorden, p. 19. 

" As (when) the wine is in the man 
Is the wisdom in the can." 

Bowring, B ataman Anthology. 

" Parnassus is te wyd j hier is geen Helicon, 
Maar duinen, bosch, en beek, een lucht, een zelfde zon ; 
F>it water, dit land, beek, veld, stroom en boomgoddinnoi, 
Met machtelooze liefde wy hartelyk beminnen." 

Hartspiegel, I, 127-130. 

" Parnassus is too wide, here is no Helicon, 
But downs, wood, and beck, one air, one self-same sun ; 
This water, this land, beck, field, steam, and wood goddesses, 
With mightless love, we heartily admire." 

Bowring, Bat. Anlh. 



1 66 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

Not only does the Dutch construction of the sentence 
bear a closer analogy to the Anglo-Saxon than the Mod- 
ern English, but a long list of Anglo-Saxon words might 
be made out which resemble the Dutch far more than 
their corresponding form in English. 1 It has therefore 
been well said that, if the English language, as it was 
written a thousand years ago, had been left to itself, and 
no other action from without had interfered with that of 
its spontaneous growth or inherent principles of change 
and development, English and Dutch to-day, if not exact- 

1 This has not escaped the attention of Mr. Skeat, who says : " The intro- 
duction into English of Dutch words is somewhat important, yet seems to have 
received but little attention. I am convinced that the influence of Dutch upon 
English has been much underrated, and a closer attention to this question might 
throw some light even upon English history. I think I may take the credit of 
being the first to point this out with sufficient distinctness. History tells us 
that our relations with the Netherlands have often been rather close. We read 
of Flemish mercenary soldiers being employed by the Normans, and of Flemish 
settlements in Wales, ' where (says old Fabyan, I know not with what truth) 
they remayned a longe whyle, but after, they sprad all Englande ouer.' We 
may recall the alliance between Edward III and the free towns of Flanders ; 
and the importation by Edward of Flemish weavers. The wool used by the 
cloth-workers of the Low Countries grew on the backs of English sheep ; and 
other close relations between us and our nearly-related neighbors grew out of 
the brewing-trade, the invention of printing, and the reformation of religion. 
Caxton spent thirty years in Flanders (where the first English book was printed), 
and translated the Low German version of Reynard the Fox. Tyndale set- 
tled at Antwerp to print his New Testament, and he was burnt at Vilvorde. 
But there was a still closer contact in the time of Elizabeth. Very instructive 
is Gascoigne's poem on the Fruits of War, where he describes his experiences 
in Holland ; and every one knows that Zutphen saw the death of the beloved 
Sir Philip Sidney. As to the introduction of cant words from Holland, see 
Beaumont and Fletcher's play entitled ' The Beggar's Bush.' After Antwerp 
had been captured by the Duke of Parma, ' a third of the merchants and manu- 
facturers of the ruined city,' says Mr. Green, ' are said to have found a refuge 
on the banks of the Thames.' All this can not but have affected our language, 
and it ought to be accepted, as tolerably certain, that during the fourteenth, fif- 
teenth, and sixteenth centuries, particularly the last, several Dutch words were 
introduced into England." This, however, would not account for a much larger 
number of words of whose origin the author seems to be uncertain, and to de- 
note which he employs the term Old Low German, he says, " for want of bet- 
ter." These words, existing already in Anglo-Saxon, are simply Old Dutch, 
and have remained much the same in Modern Dutch, as may be readily ascer- 
tained from any Anglo-Saxon-English and English-Dutch dictionary. Of these 
words the author remarks that, " if not precisely English, they come very near 
it"; and he adds : " Either they belong to Old Friesian, and were introduced by 
the Friesians who came over to England with the Saxons, or to some form of 
Old Dutch or Old Saxon, and may have been introduced from Holland, possi- 
bly even in the fourteenth century, when it was not uncommon for Flemings to 
come here. Some of them may yet be found in Anglo-Saxon. I call them Old 
Low German because they clearly belong to some Old Low German dialect ; 
and I put them in a class together in order to call attention to them, in the 
hope that their early history may receive further elucidation." — W. W. Skeat, 
An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. See pages 430-440. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



167 



ly alike, would present two very similar dialects of one 
and the same idiom. 

But whether it was the Angle, Friesian, Dutch, or 
Saxon dialects which prevailed, or whether the written 
Anglo-Saxon originated in a rude mixture of the various 
dialects which, in the progress of time, melted into one 
language, just as the kindred tribes themselves united to 
form a nation, which seems more probable, it must not be 
supposed that the relative unity found in Anglo-Saxon 
writers extended also to the spoken language. The high- 
ly polished Dutch of Holland, which is only a modern 
form of that language, and has suffered much less from 
revolutions and the injury of time, has still a vast number 
of dialects peculiar to certain localities ; and in spite of a 
superior system of national education, custom allows, nay, 
even authorizes, in the spoken language, as used by the 
most refined, certain forms and turns of phrase which 
would be totally inadmissible in writing. It is, therefore, 
not probable that what is called the Anglo-Saxon lan- 
guage was ever spoken with any degree of accuracy or 
uniformity, even among the better classes, at a time when 
literary culture was in its infancy in England, and espe- 
cially not among the mass of country people, with whom 
reading and writing were arts unknown. The latter, 
from their agricultural pursuits, had but little communi- 
cation with the inhabitants of neighboring districts ; and 
having few* opportunities and little inducement to leave 
their own neighborhood, they generally intermarried 
among themselves. And from their limited acquaintance 
and circumscribed views, they would naturally be much 
attached to their old manners, customs, and language ; 
and thus we may account for many peculiarities, preva- 
lent in olden times, being preserved even to the present 
day in the provincial dialects of certain districts in Eng- 
land, though it may be difficult to determine from which 
particular dialect they are derived. 

Among other evidences that the written Anglo-Saxon 
is a conglomerate of various dialects, may be cited this 
fact that no less than five different fragments of verbs, of 
which the principal terminations appear in cognate lan- 
guages, are huddled together in the conjugation of the 
substantive verb. 1 In its grammatical forms, Anglo-Saxon 
presents comparatively few deviations from the early 

1 Sharon Turner, History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. iv, p. 510. 



1 68 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

branches of the Teutonic family of languages. It has two 
numbers, singular and plural, and three genders. The 
gender of nouns is chiefly determined by their termina- 
tions, and the adjectives have variable terminations to 
correspond to their nouns in gender, number, and case. 
There are four cases and three declensions, the latter be- 
ing used to distinguish when the adjective has either a 
definite article, a demonstrative, or a possessive determi- 
native before it. But perhaps one of the most remarka- 
ble characteristics of Anglo-Saxon is the multiplicity of 
its synonymous words. It has ten synonyms for the word 
man, and as rciany for woman; it has eighteen words to 
denote persons in authority, besides ten compounds and 
several official titles. It has also eighteen words express- 
ive of the mind, and fourteen to denote the sea ; and to 
express the name of the Supreme Being it has more terms 
and periphrases than perhaps any other language. The 
Anglo-Saxons, especially the earlier writers, possessed a 
strong partiality lor metaphor and periphrasis ; Csedmon, 
for instance, as we have seen, to describe the ark, used no 
less than thirty consecutive phrases, and this poetical 
combination of words was so continuously resorted to, 
especially in poems, that many of the words thus com- 
bined became current in the language. 

" As a subject of philological study," says Craik, "the 
importance of this earliest known form of the English lan- 
guage can not be overestimated ; and much of what we 
possess written in it is also of great value for the matter. 
But the essential element of a literature is not matter, but 
manner. Here, too, as in everything else, the soul of the 
artistic is form — beauty of form. Now of that what has 
come down to us written in this primitive English is, at 
least for us of the present day, wholly or all but wholly 
destitute. 

" There is much writing in forms of human speech 
now extinct, or no longer in oral use, which is still intel- 
ligible to us in a certain sort, but in a certain sort only. 
It speaks to us as anything that is dead can speak to us, 
and not otherwise. We can decipher it, rather than read 
it. We make it out, as it were, merely by the touch, get- 
ting some such notion of it as a blind man might get of a 
piece of sculpture by passing his hand over it. . . . The 
original form of the English language is in this state. It 
is intelligible, but that is all. What is written in it can, in 
a certain sense, be read, but not so as to bring out from 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 169 

the most elaborate compositions in it any artistic element, 
except of the most dubious and unsatisfactory kind. Either 
such an element is not present in any considerable degree, 
or the language is not now intimately enough known for 
any one to be able to detect it. If it is not literally dumb, 
its voice has for us of the present day entirely lost its 
music. Even of the system of measure and arrangement 
according to which it is ordinarily disposed for the pur- 
poses of poetry we have no proper apprehension or feel- 
ing. Certain mechanical principles or rules may have 
been discovered, in obedience to which the versification 
appears to be constructed ; but the verse as verse remains 
not the less for our ears and hearts wholly voiceless. 
When it can be distinguished from prose at all it is only 
by certain marks or characteristics, which may indeed be 
perceived by the eye, or counted on the fingers, but 
which have no expression that excites in us any mental 
emotion. It is little better than if the composition mere- 
ly had the words ' This is verse ' written over it or un- 
der it." 1 

One of the main causes which retarded the develop- 
ment of the national language was the habit of the schol- 
ars of the time of writing almost exclusively in Latin. This 
practice was not confined to England alone, but then ex- 
isted everywhere. The scholars of the eighth century, 
communicating with each other only, and taking but little 
interest in the concerns of such of their fellow-creatures 
as were unable to express their happiness or misery in 
Greek or Latin, do not seem to have produced very ex- 
tensive benefits to the nation. So much of life was wasted 
in acquiring erudition that little remained for the applica- 
tion of it ; and as nature seldom produces a long succes- 
sion of prodigies, learning expired with its first profess- 
ors. Some of the English clergy attempted to compose 
religious poems in imitation of Caedmon, but, according 
to Bede, "no one ever compared with him." 2 Bede him- 
self wrote chiefly for the learned; yet, that the common 
people might be taught the elements of the new religion, 
he turned the Lord's Prayer and the Creed into Anglo- 
Saxon, and presented copies of these formulas to such 
illiterate priests as came under his notice. But the rest 
was all Latin, with the exception of a translation of the 

1 G. L. Craik, Manual of English Literature. 

2 Bede, Hist. Eccles., iv, ch. 24. 

13 



I ;o ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

Gospel of St. John perhaps, which he is said to have com- 
pleted just as death put an end to his labors. That after 
him much valuable literature perished in the trouble and 
confusion attending the incursions and pillaging of the 
Danes, there can be no doubt ; for nearly all the monas- 
teries and the schools connected with them throughout 
the land were either laid in ashes, or were deserted in the 
general terror and distraction occasioned by the attacks 
of the ruthless invaders. Indeed, an antiquary, in men- 
tioning the destruction of the Malmesbury Library, relates 
that many years after, traveling that way, " he saw broken 
windows patched up with remnants of the most valuable 
manuscripts on vellum." 4 Of all the literary losses caused 
by the savage fanaticism of the Danes, none is more to be 
deplored than that of the specimens of early English ver- 
nacular that must have existed, and copies of which these 
libraries undoubtedly contained. Such, however, as have 
escaped destruction, show that the Anglo-Saxon Church 
had, in her own tongue, a considerable amount of script- 
ural instruction, especially in the way of translation of the 
Gospels, some of which are still extant, and preserved in 
great perfection. The following passage of St. Luke, 
chapter vii, of which we have already given several ver- 
sions, will be exceedingly interesting to the student of 
early English. The left-hand column is taken from an 
Anglo-Saxon manuscript, believed to be of the eighth 
century, and the right-hand column from another manu- 
script, dating possibly two hundred years later : 

St. Luke, Chapter VII. 

1 1 pa wses sy SSan geworden 1 1 pa waes syftften ge-wor$en 
he ferde on fa ceastre fe is gen- he ferde on fa ceastre f e ys ge- 
emned naim. 3 mid him ferdun nemned naym ; 3 mid hym fer- 
hys leorning-cnihtas. 3 mycel den his leorning-cnyhtes. 3 my- 
menego ; eel manigeo. 

12 pa he ge-nealaehte faere 12 pa he ge-nehlahte fare 
ceastre gate fa wses ]>ar an dead ceastre gate fa waes faer an dead 
man geboren anre wudewan su- man ge-boren ane wudewon 
nu fe nanne o^erne naefde ; 3 sune. fe naenne oSerne naefde. 
seo wudewe waes far. 3 mycel 3 syo wudewe waes paer. 3 my- 
menegu faere burhware mid eel menigeo fare burh-waere mid 
hyre ; hire. 

13 pa se haelend hig ge-seah 13 Da se haelend hyo ge-seah. 
fa waes he mid mild-heortnesse Da waes he mid mildheortnysse 

4 Maitland, Dark Ages, p. 281. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



171 



ofer hig gefylled. 3 cwaef to 
hyre. ne wep f u na. 

14 Da genealaehte he 3 fa 
cyste set-hran. pa set-stodon fa 
fe hyne baeron; pa cwaef se 
hselend. eala geonga f e ic sec- 
ge aris ; 

15 Da aras se fe dead wass. 
■3 ongan sprecan. fa agef he 
hine hys meder ; 

16 pa ofer-eode ege hig ealle. 
3 hig god maersodon 3 cwaedon. 
f maere witega on us aras. 3 
faet god hys folc genosude ; 

17 Da ferde f eos spaec be hiz# 
on ealle iudea. 3 embe eall f 
rf ce : * 



ofer hyo ge-felled. 3 cwaeS to 
hire, ne wep fu na. 

14 pa ge-nehleahte he 3 fa 
cheste aetran. fa aet-stoden fa 
fe hine beren. Da cwaeS se 
haelend. Eala geonge fe is 
segge aris. 

15 pa aras se fe dead waes. 
3 ongan spraecen. fa agef he 
hine his moder. 

16 pa ofer-eode eyge hyo 
ealle. 3 hyo god mersodon 3 
cwaeSen. f mare witega on us 
aras. 3 faet god his folce ge- 
neosode. 

17 Da ferde feos spraece be 
him on eallen iudea 3 embe eall 
faet rice. 5 

Not less interesting will be the following Northum- 
brian gloss of the same passage in Latin. This, however, 
is not to be considered a fair specimen of the Northum- 
brian dialect, inasmuch as a gloss construes only the for- 
eign text, word for word, and without much regard to the 
grammatical arrangement of the words of the vernacular 
tongue thus substituted. Its sole aim is to supply a clue to 
the meaning of the words of the original separately, so that 
the original itself be more easily understood ; whereas a 
version or translation conforms to the grammatical rules 
of the vernacular tongue, and is intended to replace the 
original so completely as to make the reader quite inde- 
pendent of it. This gloss, therefore, gives only Northum- 
brian words, but is not a specimen of the old Northum- 
brian dialect, as was once supposed. 3 It is believed to 
date from the ninth or tenth century : 

113 aworden waes aefter Son n Et factum est inceps ibat 
foerde on ceastre ftiu is genem- in ciuitatem quae uocatur naim 



ned naim 3 eadon miS hine $eg- 
nas his 3 folc monigo. 

12 mi$ $y ftonne geneolecte 
to durum ceastres 3 heono dead 



et ibant cum illo discipuli eius 
et turba copiosa. 

12 cum autem apropinquaret 
portae ciuitatis et ecce defunctus 



1 From MS. No. cxl, in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 
described by Wanley in the second volume of Hickes's Thesaurus, at p. 116. 

2 From MS. Hatton 38, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford ; described by 
Wanley, p. 76. 

3 See K. W. Bouterwek, Die vier Evangelien in Alt-Notthumbrische 
Sprache. 



\]2 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

wses ferende sunu ancende mo- efferebatur filius unicus matris 

deres his j ftios widua waes "j suae et haec uidua erat et turba 

folco ceastres monig miS hia. ciuitatis multa cum ilia. 

13 f ilea mi$Sy gesege se 13 quam cum uidisset domz- 
drih/^ miS milt-heortnise ge- nus misericordia motus super 
cerred oier hia cuoeS hir to ea dixit illi noli flere. 

naelle t$u woepa. 

14 3 geneolecde 3 hran f 14 et accessit et tetigit locu- 
ceiste fta uutedlice Safte beron lum hi autem qui portabant 
stodon 3 cuoeS esne 3e ic cuoe- steterunt et ait adulescens tibi 
So aris. dico surge. 

15 3 eft-saett aras seSe wses 15 et resedit qui fuerat mor- 
dead } ongann spreca 3 salde tuus et cepit loqui et dedit 
hine moeder his. ilium matri suae. 

16 ondfeng uuted/ice alle on- 16 accepit autem omnes timor 
do 3 wundradon god cuoedon et magnificabant d^m dicentes 
fte witga micel aras in us 3 quia propheta magnus surrexit 
fortiori god sohte folc his. in nobis et quia d^s uisitauit 

plebem suam. 
17-3 eode foerde Sis word 17 Et exiit hie sermo in uni- 
on all iudea "3 all ymb f lond. uersam iudaeam et omnem circa 

regionem. 1 

Some have believed to find in these glosses the early 
traces of Danish influence on the national language, but 
this is very doubtful. The dialects of the Angles and 
Friesians who had settled in Northumbria certainly dif- 
fered in some respects from the Saxon, 2 still, Scandinavian 
words may have found their way into their language, and 
if so, there is no reason why this admixture may not have 
taken place among the Angles and Friesians in Holstein 
long before any Dane set his foot on English soil. All 
these dialects, moreover, coming from the same" original 
source, had many forms in common, and differed from 
each other, at that time, far less than they do at present. 
King Alfred, it is stated, before giving battle to the Danes, 
entered their camp, and amused them for several days 
with his songs, so that he might observe the resources of 
the enemy. Half a century later, Olaf, king of Denmark, 
succeeded by the same artifice in penetrating even into 
the tent of King Ethelstan without being detected. 

1 Both Latin text and Northumbrian gloss, which was written over it word 
for word, are literally copied from MS. Auct. D., ii, 19, in the Bodleian Library, 
Oxford ; commonly called the " Rushworth MS." Compare with the English 
version on page 90. 

2 This difference of dialect is alluded to in a passage from Bede : " Caelin, 
rex occidentalium Saxonum qui lingua eorum Csewlin vocabatur." 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



173 



However, lest too much stress be laid upon these circum- 
stances, it must be remembered that at those times, when 
people were accustomed to any kind of dialect and accent, 
and when there existed neither mail, nor newspapers, nor 
printed books, the minstrel took the place of all these, 
and that, even in time of war, the gleeman could pass 
everywhere unmolested, and would find with every one a 
good reception, provided he had something interesting to 
tell, and knew how to make himself agreeable ; and so 
the facts alluded to seem to prove that the enemy was 
mistaken in the real character rather than in the accent 
or nationality of these princes. 

But while these Northumbrian glosses do not by them- 
selves prove the Danish influence on the English lan- 
guage, it is by no means impossible that they are the 
work of some Danish monk or clergyman, for by the mid- 
dle of the tenth century most of the Danish citizens of 
England had turned Christians, in order to remove from 
themselves a marked indication of alienship. Several, in 
consideration of grants of land, assumed the title and the 
employment of perpetual defenders of the church ; of that 
church whose edifices, before, they had with such pecul- 
iar delight burned and destroyed. Some of them even 
entered religious orders, and professed a rigid and som- 
ber austerity in expiation of a long career of crime. Still, 
whether such instances of tardy penance and repentance 
were ever accompanied by any proficiency in Latin, such 
as was necessary to interpret the gospel text correctly, is 
doubtful, and, in the absence of any well-authenticated 
testimony to the contrary, we may be justified in conclud- 
ing that these Northumbrian glosses were the work of 
some native monk who had the advantage of an early lit- 
erary education, and who interpreted the Latin text, for 
the benefit of his people, in words belonging to their own 
vernacular. 

If, therefore, these glosses can not be quoted as show- 
ing an early Danish influence upon the language, it is not 
the less certain that this influence was actively at work, 
and left a lasting imprint. It is in the dialects of North- 
ern England, where the population partakes in greater 
proportion of Danish blood, that the infusion of words 
and terms of Scandinavian origin is especially observable, 
though many of these have also found their way into dis- 
tant counties, such as Dorset and Worcestershire, where 
Danes were only few in number, and never had any exten- 



i; 4 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

sive settlement. " When weighing the corruptions of the 
Old English," says Oliphant, " we shall find that two thirds 
of these are due to the shires held by the Norsemen ; the 
remaining one third is due to the Lower Severn and to 
the shires lying south of the Thames." 1 Thus the Danes 
branded forever their mark upon the English tongue ; the 
North, which was overrun by them, was evidently first 
and most affected by their presence, while from all the 
facts referred to above, we may suppose that the corrup- 
tion of the original Saxon went on steadily throughout 
the whole land, until in some parts even the Scandinavian 
speech prevailed, though with a large admixture of Saxon 
words, and vice versa, according to the relative prepon- 
derance in number, power, and influence of the population 
of either race, in the various districts of England. 

Though many words in the English vocabulary are, 
therefore, undoubtedly of Scandinavian origin, it is not 
always possible to determine whether they were of Dan- 
ish importation, or whether they did not exist already 
in the Old Anglo-Saxon, especially in such cases where 
the English, Dutch, and Friesian have the same words in 
common. According to Dr. Gudbrand Vigfusson, how- 
ever, the following English words are of undoubted Scan- 
dinavian origin : ale, anger, bay, bark (of a tree), billow, 
blush, bondsman, boon, booth, both, breadth, broth, cake, call, 
cast, clip, crop, depth, dream, droop, dwell, earl, egg, eider, fel- 
low, fir, flat, flay, flit, foster, froth, frown, gain, gust, hair, 
happy, heel, height, husband, hustings, ill, kid, knife, knot, law, 
loft, low, meek, meeting, muggy, odd, ransack, rash, rein (deer), 
root, rot, same, scant, score, scrape, seat, shallow, skill, skin, 
skull, sky, sly, sneak, spoil, spoon, steak, strand, swain, take, 
task, thrall, thrash, thrift, ugly, walrus, wand, want, width, 
wing, wont, wrong. 

Of proper names, descriptive of geographical locali- 
ties, the nationality is more easily ascertained, and the 
Norse and Danish names, still found scattered all over 
England, will often even supply us with a means of ascer- 
taining facts which history has left unrecorded. By the 
aid of these local names we are able, not only to define 
the precise area which was ravaged by the Scandinavians, 
but in many instances to detect the nature of the descent, 
whether for purposes of plunder, trade, or colonization. 

In the first place, it must be remembered that Low 

1 T. L. Kington Oliphant, Sources of Standard English. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 175 

Dutch and Scandinavian are cognate languages, having 
many forms in common, and hence that in all countries 
occupied by the Franks, Saxons, and Scandinavians — 
from northern France through Belgium, Holland, Fries- 
land, Holstein, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, including 
Iceland — we may find local names which, differing but lit- 
tle in form, are identical in meaning. Thus the Norse 
Breidafiord, the English Broadford or Bradford, and the 
Dutch Brevoort mean exactly the same thing; bree being 
the shorter form of the Dutch breed (pronounced brade), in 
Anglo-Sazon brad; and not only is the present written form 
of English geographical names apt to mislead us about 
their original pronunciation, but sometimes even the origi- 
nal sound will cling to a name, though it may be Anglicised 
in writing, as in the case of Seaford in Sussex, for instance, 
which is still pronounced Seavoort by its inhabitants, just 
as the Dutch Zandvoort, Gansevoort, Amersfoort, etc., which 
leaves no doubt as to the origin of its earliest settlers. 
But while the suffix ford occurs both in Anglo-Saxon and 
in Norse names, it is found in them with a characteristic 
difference of meaning. The fords of the Anglo-Saxon 
husbandmen, which are so abundantly scattered over the 
south of England, are passages across rivers for men and 
cattle ; the fords of the Scandinavian sea-rovers are pas- 
sages for ships, up arms of the sea, as in the fjords of Nor- 
way and Iceland, and the firths of Scotland. Therefore 
these Norse fords are found on the coasts which were fre- 
quented by the Scandinavians for purposes of trade or 
plunder, whereas the inland fords generally indicate the 
settlements of a Saxon population. 1 

So the word wick or wich is found in both Anglo-Sax- 
on and Norse names ; but here also there is a difference 
in the application, analogous to that we have just consid- 
ered. The primary meaning in either case seems to have 
been " a station ; a location." In Dutch, the word wyk 
means now "a city district," but anciently it had in that 
language a wider meaning, and is generally found added 
to some other word, by which it becomes descriptive of 
the locality, as : Katwyk, that is the district of the Cattiov 
Chatti; Ryswyk, Beeverwyk, etc. But here it is always an 
abode on land — a hamlet or a village — and so it was with 
the Saxons in England. With the Northmen, on the con- 
trary, it was a station for ships — hence " a small creek or 

1 See page 130. 



i;6 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

bay." The sea-rovers derived their very name of vik-ings, 1 
or " creekers," from the wics or creeks in which they anch- 
ored. The inland wicks, therefore, are mostly Saxon, 
while the Norse wicks fringe her English coasts, and usu- 
ally indicate the stations of pirates, rather than those of 
colonists. Thus Alnwick , on the banks of the A In, and 
Berwick, named after the Celtic aber, though situated in 
parts where there seem to be traces of the Danes, were 
probably Saxon settlements, whereas Wick and Sandwich 
in Kent, Wyke near Portland, Wicklow in Ireland, show by 
their very situation to be of Norse derivation. It may be 
further noticed that in the north of England the form 
wick prevails, as Keswick, Sedgwick, Warwick, etc., and 
that in the south it assumes the softer form of wick, as 
Sandwich, Greenwich, Ipswich, Warwick, etc. 

The Danish word thorp is the Dutch dorp and the Ger- 
man dorf, meaning " a village." Copmansthorpe, near York, 
would therefore be equivalent to the Dutch Koopmansdorp 
and the German Kaufmansdorf, " the merchant's village," 
showing that here the Danish traders resided, just as 
those of Saxon blood dwelt together at Ckapmanslade. 
This suffix thorp, thorpe, throp or trop, found in the names 
of Althorpe, Holt hr op, Winthrop, Wilstrop, is useful in ena- 
bling us to discriminate between the settlements of the 
Danes and those of the Norwegians, being confined al- 
most exclusively to the former. Ullestkorpe reminds us of 
a Scandinavian deity, while Bishopsthorpe and Nunthorpe 
point to a later period, and recall the Christian faith of 
their first occupants. 

The word toft is also distinctly Danish and East An- 
glian. It signifies " a homestead " or " inclosure," and, 
like thorpe, it always denotes the fixed residence of a 
Danish population, as Toft, Lowestoft, etc. 

Thwaite, on the other hand, is a distinctive Norwegian 
suffix. The meaning is " a piece of cleared land ; a forest 
clearing," as Hallthwaite, Lockthwaite, Finsthwaite, Orrna- 
tkwaite, etc. Garth, " an inclosure," corresponding to the 
Anglo-Saxon gard and the English yard, is also a Norse 
root, as Fishguard, formerly Fishgartk, Applegarth, etc. It 
is the Dutch gaard, the German garten, and the French 
jardin? 

1 In later times the word " Viking " came to be used for any robber. In a 
Norse Biblical paraphrase Goliah is termed a viking. — Dasent, Burnt Njal, 
vol. ii, p. 353. 

2 For Norse names in Normandy, see pages 549-551. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



177 



The Norse word beck, " a brook," is the Dutch beek, 
with the same meaning-, and is found more frequently in the 
Norwegian than in the Danish region ; and this is also the 
case with the suffix dal or dale, " a valley," which in Swed- 
ish, Danish, and in Dutch is dal, in Anglo-Saxon and Old 
Dutch dael, as Ruysdael, Bloemendael, etc., which makes it 
doubtful, therefore, whether the names of Kendal, Lonsdale, 
Annandale, and the like, are of Dutch or of Scandinavian 
origin. The Friesian form is del, as in Arundel. When 
dal is a prefix, it is usually a corruption of the Celtic dol, 
" a field," as in the case of Dalkeith, Dairy tuple, etc. 1 

The word holm, in Swedish, means " an island," almost 
always " an island in a lake or river." Stockholm stands 
on such an island. In England we have, likewise, Flat- 
holm on the Severn, and Lingholme on Windermere, 
where a large number of Swedes took refuge in the year 
918. The word is found in many English names, such as 
Holmes, Gateholm, Grassholm, Steepholm, Wostenholm, etc. 
An island in the sea is denoted by the Norse oe, a, ay or 
ey, which latter, however, is Anglo-Saxon as well as 
Norse. We find these forms in Bedloe, Faroe, Thurloe, Iona ; 
Cumbray on the western coast of Scotland, and Lambay on 
the Irish coast. This Norse root ey is found also in the 
word Orkney, the first syllable of which is the Gaelic ore, 
"a whale," while the n which follows it is a remnant of 
the Gaelic innis, " an island." Milton speaks of " the 
haunt of seals and ores." The same Norse root is found 
in Hackney, " Hacon's island " ; Bardsey, " the island of the 
bards " ; Roodey, " the island of the rod or cross," etc. Ea, 
in Anglesea, "the island of the Angles or English," is only 
a variety of spelling. 2 

1 See page 124. 

2 At a little distance from the western gate of London lay what was formerly 
an island of the Thames, which, from the dense bushes and thickets with which 
it was covered, received the name of Thorney. Robert Wace, in his Roman de 
Ron, mentions this island, and it is quite interesting to notice, in his phonetic 
spelling, the natural difficulty of the Frenchman in pronouncing the th, as well 
as the indistinct manner in which the English even then pronounced the letter r. 

" En un islet esteit assise, 
Zonfe out nom, joste Tamise ; 
Zonie por 50 l'apelon, 
Ke d'espine i out foison, 
Et ke l'ewe en alout environ. 
Ee en engleis isle apelon, 
Ee est isle, Zon est espine, 
Seit rainz, seit arbre, seit racine ; 
Zonte 50 est en engleis, 
Isle d'espine en franceis." (10653.) 



i;8 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

Another word which denotes the occasional presence 
of the sea-rovers is ness or naze, which means " nose ; a 
promontory of land." It is the German nase and the 
Dutch neus, which has the same meaning, and is also used 
to denote a headland, as Cape Ter Neuze, for instance. In 
the same way we find capes Grinez and Bla?icnez, near 
Calais, and the Naze in Essex. But, although the suffix 
ness is common in English names, it has only this Norse 
meaning when on the coast or on rivers near the coast 
where such a headland does exist ; * whereas, in places in- 
land it has the meaning which we find in the suffix of the 
word " wilderness," in Dutch wildernis, " an uncultivated 
or desert region." 

Holt is a Norse name, and corresponds to the German 
holz and the Dutch hout, all with the same meaning of 
" wood." The park of Haarlem, renowned for its fine 
old oaks, is called the " Hout." This form occurs in 
Sparsholt, Alder sholt, and in the shorter forms of Alder 'shot '; 
Bagshot, Bramshot, etc. The Wolds in Yorkshire is a Frie- 
sian name, analogous to holt, and also means " the woods." 
Just as holt in Dutch is hout, so wold in Friesian and Dutch 
is woud, meaning " a forest." 

The word force, which is exclusively Norwegian, is 
the ordinary name for " waterfall " in the Lake District, 
and corresponds to the Icelandic foss, with the same 
meaning. Gill means " a ravine." Haugh is the old Norse 
haugr, " a sepulchral mound," the same word which ap- 
pears in the haughs of Northumberland. Kirk is the Dutch 
kerk for " church " ; and bjorn, now borne, is found in Os- 
born, from Aesborn, " children of God," etc. 

But the Scandinavian word which outstrips all others, 
both in number and in its exclusively national character, 
is the suffix by. This word originally meant " a dwell- 
ing," or "a farm," and in course of time came to denote 
"a village" or "a town." We find it as a suffix in the 
village-names of Denmark, and of all countries colonized 
by the Danes. In England it always denotes Danish col- 
onization, " a permanent abode," inasmuch as in places 
visited only for purposes of trade or plunder no dwell- 
ings would be required. There are scores and scores of 
names ending in by all over England ; in Lincolnshire 
alone there are more than one hundred. To the north of 
Watling Street there are some six hundred instances of its 

1 On the Hudson river we have St. Anthony's neus ; St. Anthony's nose. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



179 



occurrence ; to the south of it but few. This suffix is 
common both to the Norwegian and Danish districts of 
England, though it is more frequent in the latter. Thus 
we have Grimsby », Swainsby, Rolfsby, Ormsby, Whitby, Col- 
by, Malt by, Hacomby, Ingersby, Osgodby, Stokesby, etc., all 
family names, indicating the original owner of the farm 
or founder of the village. Saxby, Scotsby, Frisby, Frankby, 
Flemingby, show that the name was applied originally by 
the Danes to the farm of some Saxon, Scot, Friesian, 
Frank, or Fleminger living in their districts. Wherever 
the Danes went this form is always certain to be found. 
Thus the meaning of Derby, Derwentby, Netherby, Appleby, 
and the like, are easily understood. Coningsby is Danish 
for the English Cunningham, literally " the king's farm, 
the king's home." The spelling is Anglicized in Batters- 
bee, Homsbee, and Ashbee. Rokeby has become Rugby. The 
Danes were fond of adding the particle to the names of 
their gods, and thus wrote Thoresby and Balder sby — justi- 
fying the poet when he sings of the Northmen that " they 
gave the gods the land they won." Other Danish names, 
such as Kirkby and Crosby, show that, at the time these 
names were given, the Christian bishop had driven out 
the heathen priest, and that the Christian Church and 
cross had succeeded to the pagan altar. 1 In that part of 
England which was settled by the Danes, the missionary 
efforts seem to have been of a parochial character. We 
find the prefix kirk, a church, in the names of no less than 
sixty-eight places in the Danelagh, while in the Saxon por- 
tion of England we find it scarcely once. Kirby means 
church-village, and the Kirbys which are dotted over East 
Anglia and Northumbria speak to us of the time when the 
possession of a church by a village community was the 
exception, and not, as is now, the rule. These names 
point to a state of things somewhat similar to that now 
prevailing in Australia or Canada, where often but a sin- 
gle church and a single clergyman are to be found in a 
district fifty miles in circumference. Thus we may regard 
these Kirbys distributed throughout the Danelagh as the 
sites of the mother churches, to which the surrounding 

1 Many village names still localize the scenes of the labors of early mission- 
aries. At Kirkcudbright, for instance, we find the name of St. Cuthbert, a shep- 
herd-boy, who became abbot of Melrose, and the Thaumaturgus of Britain. 
Baxter, who wrote in the second part of the last century on British antiquities, 
thought the name was Celtic. It is, he says, forsan, " Caer gin aber rit," id est 
11 Arx trajectus flumiali Aestuarei. — Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicorum, 
p. 40. 



180 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

parishes, whose names contain no such prefix, would bear 
a filial relationship. 

The Danes appear to have frequented the southeastern 
portion of the island for purposes of plunder rather than 
of colonization. This we gather from the fact that the 
Norse names in these parts are found chiefly in the 
immediate vicinity of the coast, and designate either safe 
anchorages or dangerous headlands. Here we find hardly 
one solitary instance of the occurrence of the suffixes by, 
toft, thorpe, or thwaite, which would indicate permanent resi- 
dence. London was repeatedly besieged by the Danes. 
With the hope of capturing the rich and unrifled prize, 
their fleets lay below the city for many months together. 1 
Their stations were at Deptford, Greenwich, and at Wool- 
wich. The spits and headlands, which mark the naviga- 
tion along the Thames and the adjacent coasts, almost all 
bear characteristic Norse names, such as Shelness, Sheer- 
ness, Shoeburyness, Wrabness, and the Naze near Warwich. 
On the Essex coast we find Danesey Flats, Langenhoe, and 
Aires ford. The few scattered Danish names in Suffolk, 
such as Ipswich, Dunwich, Alder swick, are all near the 
coast. Norwich, too, is probably Norse, since the city is 
situated on what was formerly an arm of the sea, and was 
visited by Danish fleets. 2 In the extreme southeastern cor- 
ner of Norfolk there is a dense Danish settlement, occu- 
pying a space some eight miles by seven, well protected 
on every side by the sea, and the estuaries of the Bure 
and the Yare. In this small district eleven names out of 
twelve are unmistakably Norse, compounded mostly of 
some common Danish personal name and the suffix by. 
When we cross the Wash, and come to Lincolnshire, we 
find overwhelming evidence of an almost exclusive Dan- 
ish occupancy. While in this county the Danish suffix 
by is found in more than one hundred names, the total 
number of Scandinavian names of all kinds amounts to 
about three hundred — more than are found in all the rest 
of Southumbrian England. From Lincolnshire the Danes 
spread inland over the contiguous counties^ The Dane- 
lagh, or Danish district by agreement between Alfred and 
Guthrum, renewed by Edmund and Anlaf in 941, was 
divided from the Saxon kingdom by a line passing along 
the Thames, the Lea, and the Ouse, and then following 

] Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A. D. 1013, 1014, 1016. 

2 Sharon Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. ii, p. 317. — Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 
A. D. 1004. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 181 

the course of Watling Street, the Roman road which runs 
in a straight line from London to Chester. North of this 
line we find in the local names abundant evidence of Dan- 
ish occupancy, while to the south of it hardly a name is 
to be found denoting any permanent Scandinavian coloni- 
zation. 

As we approach the northeastern extremity of Scot- 
land we again find a large number of Norse names ; they 
are, however, no longer Danish as heretofore, but exclu- 
sively Norwegian. Indeed, we know from history that 
down to a comparatively late period, A. D. 1266, the Shet- 
lands, the Orkneys, the Hebrides, and the Isle of Man were 
not dependencies of the crown "of Scotland, but jarldoms 
attached to the kingdom of Norway. In the Shetlands 
every local name, without exception, is Norwegian ; in 
the Hebrides nearly all are. The Isle of Man must at one 
time have contained a considerable Norwegian popula- 
tion, to judge from the Norse names of the villages, which, 
it will be seen, are mainly confined to the south of the isl- 
and — a circumstance which is accounted for by the his- 
torical fact that when Goddard of Iceland conquered 
Man, he divided the fertile southern portion among his 
followers, while he left the natives in possession of the 
northern and more mountainous region where, conse- 
quently, Celtic names prevail. 1 

In the same way that the Danish names in England 
are seen to radiate from the Wash, so the Norwegian 
immigration seems to have proceeded from Morecambe 
Bay and that part of the coast which lies opposite the Isle 
of Man. Cumberland, Westmoreland, Lancashire, and 
Dumfriesshire contain a very considerable number of 
Scandinavian names, but comparatively few of a distinct- 
ively Danish cast. The Lake District seems to have been 
almost exclusively peopled by Celts and Norwegians. 
The Norwegian suffixes, gill, garth, haugh, thwaite, force, 
and fell are there abundant ; while the Danish forms, 
thorpe and toft, are almost unknown. 

Although there are but few Norse names found inland 
to the south of Watling Street, it is not the less certain 
that the sea-rovers, knowing all the good harbors of the 
island, did not overlook the fjords of Pembrokeshire as 
shelter for their vessels. Thus there were no less than 
twenty-four of the headlands on the Pembrokeshire coast 

1 Train, Isle of Man , vol. i, p. 78. 



1 82 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

occupied by Scandinavian camps, which were probably 
at first little more than nests of pirates, who sallied forth 
from the deep land-bound channels to plunder the oppo- 
site coast, and to prey upon any passing merchant craft. 

There is, however, occasionally in Pembrokeshire a 
difficulty in distinguishing between the Norse names and 
those which are due to the colony of Flemings which was 
established in this district during the reign of Henry I. 1 
These colonists came from a portion of Flanders which 
was submerged by an irruption of the sea in the year 
I no. Leweston, Rickeston, Robeston, Rogeston, Johnston, Wal- 
ter ston, Herbrandston, Thomaston, Williamston, and Jeffrey- 
ston belong to a class of names which we find nowhere else 
on the English map ; names that were given, not by Saxon 
or Danish pagans, but by Christian settlers, men bearing 
the names, not of Thurstan, Gorm or Grim, but of Lewes, 
Richard, Robert, Walter, and others common in the twelfth 
century. 

The Northmen would appear to have established 
themselves in Ireland rather for purposes of trade than 
of colonization. Their ships sailed up the great fjords of 
Waterford, Wexford, Strangford, and Carlingford, and an- 
chored in the bays of Limerick and Wicklow. In Kerry we 
find the name of Smerwick, then apparently, as now, a 
trading station for the produce of the surrounding dis- 
trict. The name of Copland Island, near Belfast, shows 
that here was a trading station of the Norse merchants, 
who trafficked in English slaves and other merchandise. 2 
As we approach Dublin, the numerous Norse names along 
the coast — Lambay Island, Dalkey Island, Ireland's Eye, the 
Skerries -, etc., prepare us to learn that the Scandinavians 
in Dublin were governed by their own laws till the thir- 
teenth century, and that, as in London, they had their 
own separate quarter of the city, guarded by walls and 
gates. 3 The general geographical acquaintance which the 
Northmen had with the whole of Ireland is shown by the 
fact that three out of the four Irish provinces, namely, 
Leinster, Munster, and Ulster, present the Norse suffix 
ster, " a place," which is not Celtic, but essentially Scan- 

1 Flandrenses, tempore Regis Henrici primi .... ad occidentalem Walliae 
partem apud Haverford sunt translati. — Higden's Chronicle. 

2 See Goldwin Smith, Irish History and Irish Character, p. 48. 

3 Worsaae, Danes and Norwegians, pp. 323-349. The Scandinavians, 
called Ostmen, possessed the four cities of Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, and 
Cork. There were Ostmen kings of Limerick, Dublin, and Waterford. — Lap- 
penberg, Anglo-Norman Kings, p. 64. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



183 



dinavian, and exceedingly common in the Shetlands and 
in Norway. 

The traditions of ancient Scandinavian liberties are 
associated with the places where the Things, that is " the 
judicial and legislative assemblies of the Scandinavian na- 
tions," were wont to meet. These institutions, of which 
we find traces in all regions colonized by the Northmen, 
were derived from the parent country, Norway, where 
there was an Althing, or general assembly, and four dis- 
trict things for the several provinces. The Norwegian 
parliament still goes by the name of the Stor-thing, or 
" great council." The Thing usually met on some island, 
hill, or promontory, where its deliberations could be car- 
ried on secure from lawless disturbance. The Northmen 
introduced their Things into England. The very name 
survives in the English words " meeting," from mot thing, 
or assembly of freeholders, and " hustings," or house things, 
at which the duly qualified householders still assemble to 
delegate their legislative powers to their representatives 
in parliament. In the Danelagh, as well as in most of the 
detached Scandinavian colonies, we find local names 
which prove the former existence of these Things in Eng- 
land. Not far from the center of the Cheshire colony in 
the Wirall, we find the village of Thingwall. In the Shet- 
land islands, Sandsthing, Althsthing, Delting, Nesting, and 
Lunziesting were the places of assembly for the local 
Things of the several islands, while Tingwall seems to 
have been the spot where the Althing, or general assem- 
bly, was held. In the Shetlands, the old Norwegian laws 
are even now administered at open courts of justice, which 
still go by the name of Lawtings. The old Norse Thing 
has survived in the Isle of Man to the present day. 

It would demand more space than the interest of the 
subject would warrant to trace the local vestiges of the 
worship of the Scandinavian deities. They have left 
their names scattered far and wide all over England, 
Scotland, Ireland, and the smaller isles, where the presence 
of ancient Scandinavian runes bear testimony to the long 
duration and great difficulty of the process by which the 
Scandinavian settlers were converted to Christianity. Of 
the mythic heroes of Scandinavian legend, the name of 
Weland, the northern Vulcan who fabricates the arms of 
the heroes of the early Sagas, is preserved at a place in 
Berkshire called Waylandsmith. Here still stands the 
structure which the Saxons called Welandes Smidde, " We- 



1 84 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

land's Forge" — a huge megalithic monument, consisting 
of two chambers constructed of upright stones and roofed 
with large slabs, undoubtedly some work of Celtic origin. 
Daring sailors, and indomitable fighters, the Northmen 
were not a constructive race, and their pride revolted at 
the idea that a people stronger than themselves could 
have brought there such gigantic masses and placed them 
in position. All such works they invariably attributed to 
the complacent co-operation of the enemy of mankind, 
which some one must have necessarily paid for at the 
price of soul and body. Hence all the marvelous legends 
which often linger round the numerous places called the 
Devil's Dyke, the Devil's Punchbowl, and the like, and which 
all originated in Norse and Saxon superstition. There 
is yet in the Lake District a dark and rugged rock which 
bears the name of Scratch Meal Scar. Here we may de- 
tect the names of two personages who figure in the Norse 
mythology, Skratti, a demon, and Mella, a weird giantess. 1 
This demon Skratti still survives in the superstition of 
Northern Europe. The Skratt of Sweden, with a wild 
horse-laugh, is believed to mock travelers who are lost 
upon the waste ; and sundry haunted rocks on the coast 
of Norway still go by the name of Skratt askar? In the 
north of England the name of Skratti continues to be 
heard in the mouths of the peasantry, and the memory of 
" Old Scratch," as he is familiarly called, may probably 
be destined to survive through many future Christian 
centuries, in company with " Old Nick," who is no other 
than Nikr, the dangerous water-demon of Scandinavian 
legend. 3 This dreaded monster, as the Norwegian peas- 
ant will gravely assure you, demands a human victim 
every year, and carries on children who stray too near to 
his abode, beneath the waters. In Iceland, also, Nykr, the 
water-horse, is still believed to inhabit some of the lonely 
tarns scattered over the savage region of desolation which 
occupies the central portion of the island. 

Many similar traces of the old northern mythology 
are to be found in that well-stored antiquarian museum, 
the English language. In the phrase " Deuce take it," the 
deity Tiw still continues to be invoked. 4 The nursery 

1 Grimm, Deutsche Mythology, p. 493. 

2 Thorpe, Northern Mythology, vol. i, p. 250. 

3 Laing, Heimskringla, vol. i, p. 92. 

4 Quosdam daemones quos dusios Galli nuncupant — Augustin. De Civitate 
Dei, xv, c. 23. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



I8 5 



legend of " Jack and Jill " is found in the younger Edda, 
where the story of Hjuki, " the flow," and Bil, " the ebb," 
the two children of the moon, appears to be merely an 
exoteric version of the flowing and ebbing of the tides. 1 
The morning " gossamer " is the gott-cymar, the veil or trail 
left by the deity who has passed over the meadows in the 
night. The word "brag" has an etymological connec- 
tion with the name of Bragi, 2 the Norse god of song and 
mirth, while the faithful devotees of Bragi are apt to fall, 
after a while, under the power of Mara? a savage demon, 
who tortures men with visions, and crushes them even to 
death, and who still survives, though with mitigated pow- 
ers, as "the Nightmare" of modern days. 4 

While the words by, tkwaite, toft, holm, force, gill, hangh, 
ey, are distinctly Norse forms, and mark the sites of Scan- 
dinavian settlements in England ; while thorpe, drop, dorp, 
and dorf — boec, bee, beck, and beek — fjord, ford, vord, and 
voort — vie, wick, wick, and wyk, seem to be as much ortho- 
graphic as phonetic varieties of the same words which the 
Low Dutch and Scandinavian languages have in common, 
there are other forms which, on the European continent, 
extend not much farther north than Friesland, and south 
not much below the river Seine, and which, found in 
great numbers in England also, mark there with great pre- 
cision the sites of what may be called the Anglo-Saxon 
colonies. 

Foremost among these stands the word ton, the pri- 
mary meaning of which is to be sought in the Friesian 
te'ne, " a hedge." In Anglo-Saxon we have the verb tynan, 
"to close or inclose," and its derivative tyning, "an in- 
closure'; a yard ; a farm ; a garden." A tun or ton was a 
place surrounded by a hedge, a ditch, or shut in by a 
fence or palisade. " Hedging and tining " for hedging 
and ditching, was a phrase current in England two hun- 
dred years ago. Originally a tun or ton meant only a sin- 
gle croft, homestead or farm, and the word retained this 
restricted meaning in the time of Wyclif. In his transla- 
tion of the Bible, the invited guest excuses himself with 
the words : " I have bought a toun, and I have nede to go 

1 Baring-Gould, Iceland, p. 161. 

2 Baring-Gould, ibid., p. 161. 

3 Thrupp, Anglo-Saxon Home, p. 263 ; Laing, Heimskringla, i, p. 92. 

4 On the subject of the Teutonic and Scandinavian mythology, as illus- 
trated by local names, the reader may consult Jacob Grimm, Deutsche Mythol- 
ogy, passim. 

14 



1 86 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

owt and se it"; and in the reference to it, Matt, xxii, 5, 
" But they dispisiden and wenten forth, oon into his toun, 
another to his marchaundise." This usage of the word 
is retained in Scotland, where a solitary farmstead still 
goes by the name of toun. In Dutch, tuin means " a gar- 
den, and tuinman means "a gardener"; but in some com- 
binations it still retains its original meaning of inclosure. 
Houttuinen are "lumber-yards," and teertuinen are "yards 
where the ship-chandlers keep tar, cordage," etc. In many 
parts of England the rickyard is called barton — that is, 
the inclosure for the bear or " crop " borne by the land. 
There are still lone farmhouses in Kent in whose names 
the form ton figures as a suffix. But in most cases the 
isolated ton became the nucleus of a village, and the vil- 
lage grew into a town, and at last the word town has come 
to denote, no longer the one small croft inclosed from the 
forest by the Saxon settler, but the dwelling-place of a 
vast population, often much larger than that which the 
whole of Saxon England could boast. 1 All these forms of 
ton, tun, toun, and town, are found as suffixes in English 
local names, and invariably show the sites of original Sax- 
on settlements. Tunbridge is one of the few names in 
which the old form is fully preserved. Generally, how- 
ever, it has been lengthened into toun or town, as in Hope- 
toun, Water town, or shortened into ton, as in Acton, origi- 
nally Oaktown, Bratton, Leighton, ■ Leammgton, etc. Al- 
most everywhere we find Norton, Sutton, Easton, Weston. 
Local names of this kind were readily transferred to men, 
and hence such names as Walton, Milton, Wootton, Staun- 
ton, Morton, Appleton, Wellington, Washington, and the like, 
are apt to indicate Saxon descent, in contradistinction to 
the many English patronymics that show a Celtic or 
Scandinavian extraction. 

The Anglo-Saxon yard, and the Norse equivalent garth, 
contain nearly the same idea as ton. Both denote some 
place fenced in, or guarded. The articulations y and g 
being interchangeable, the meaning of the word garden is 
readily accounted for as " an inclosed cultivated place in 
which flowers, fruits, vegetables, etc., are reared." The 
same may be said respecting stoke, another common suffix, 
which we find in Alver stoke and Bassingstoke. In Dutch, 
a stok means a " stick." In Old English a stoke was a place 

1 It appears from Domesday-book that the population of Saxon England 
was, in the eleventh century, about a million and a half. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 187 

stockaded, surrounded with stocks or piles. A somewhat 
similar inclosure is denoted by the suffix fold, which was 
a stall or place constructed of felled trees, for the protec- 
tion of sheep or cattle. The Anglo-Saxon weorthig, which 
appears in English names in the form of worth, bears a 
meaning analogous to all these. It denotes a place ward- 
ed, or protected. It was probably an inclosed homestead 
for the churls, subordinate to the tun. We find this suffix 
in the names of Bosworth, Walworth, Kenilworth, and many 
other places in England. 

The prevalence of these suffixes in English names, all 
conveying the notion of inclosure or protection, show 
how eager every man was to possess some land which he 
could call his own, and guard from the intrusion of others. 
Even among those portions of the Teutonic race which 
remained on the Continent, we do not find that this idea 
of privacy and seclusiveness has been manifested in local 
names to the same extent as in England. The feeling 
seems, indeed, to have been more or less enchorial, lor we 
find strong indications of it even in the pure Celtic names 
of Britain. Probably more than one half of the Celtic 
names in Wales and Ireland contain the roots llan, kil, or 
bally, all of which originally denoted an inclosure of some 
kind. The Teutonic suffixes which do not denote incis- 
ures are not reproduced in England to nearly the same 
extent as on the Continent. It would seem, therefore, 
that the love of inclosure and privacy, of something 
hedged, walled in, or protected, is due more or less to the 
Celts, who were gradually absorbed among the Saxon 
colonists. 

The ancient name of burg or burgh, so frequently found 
in all Teutonic countries, where it originally meant " a 
small fortified height," and gave the name of burgers or 
burghers to the people living under the protection of the 
burgh, is of course not wanting in England. It there as- 
sumes varied forms, changing from the full Scarborough to 
the shortened Edinboro\ and occasionally appearing as 
bury, in Salisbury, Malmesbury, and others. Brough in West- 
moreland is a contraction of borough, and in . this form it 
appears as the root in the compound Brougham. The old 
Scottish form of the word is brogh, with the guttural 
strongly pronounced. Burgh and brough are Anglian, as 
are probably four fifths of the " boroughs," while bury is 
the distinctly Saxon form. 

Dun is both Saxon and Celtic. In both it means " a 



1 88 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

height," and in the latter language often "a fortified 
height," as we have seen in Dumbarton, " the fortress of 
the Britons." In Anglo-Saxon it rather means " an emi- 
nence stretching out in gentle slope." Such are the Dunes 
on the French coast, and the Duinen in Holland, and there 
they form the first part of the name of Dunkerque, in 
Dutch Duinkerken, pronounced nearly alike, and equivalent 
to Kirk on the Downs. We find this form in Southdowns, 
Landsdowne , Huntingdon, Maldon, Brandon, Farringdon, 
etc. The Scots place it first, and say Dunkeld,^ Dunbar, 
Dunrobin, which shows these words to be of Celtic origin, 
as observed already elsewhere. 1 

The vast tract in Kent and Sussex which is now called 
"the Weald," is the remains of a Saxon forest called An- 
dredesleah. In this district almost every local name, for 
miles and miles, terminates in hurst, ley, or den. The hursts 
were the denser portions of the forest, the leys, leahs, or 
leas, in modern English leigh, were the open forest glades, 
and the dens were the deep-wooded valleys. All these 
words are found as parts of local names in Or leigh, Wad- 
leigh, Berkeley, Hamersley, Wellesley, Lyndhurst, Hawkshurst, 
Maiden, Hampden, Tenterden, and the like. The dens were 
the swine pastures ; and down to the seventeenth century 
the " Court of Dens," as it was called, was held at Alding- 
ton to determine disputes arising out of the rights of for- 
est pasture. The surnames Hayward and Howard are cor- 
ruptions of Hogwarden, an officer elected annually to see 
that the swine in the common forest pastures or dens were 
duly provided with rings, and were prevented from stray- 
ing. So the Woodward was the wood warden, whose du- 
ties were analogous to those of the howard. 

The Anglo-Saxon field or field, in Dutch veld, is an open 
space of land, an inclosed portion of cultivated soil, a part 
of the wood where the trees have been felled. In old 
writers wood and field are continually contrasted. Like 
our modern term " clearing," the word field bore witness 
to the great extent of unfelled timber which still remained. 
With the progress of cultivation the word lost its primi- 
tive meaning, and is often found with a prefix referring 
to the cause or circumstance in which the name origi- 
nated. Lichfield, in Hampshire, for instance, literally 
means " field of corpses," and evidently refers to some 
bloody conflict of which history has preserved no other 

1 See pages 124 and 177. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. ^9 

record than its name and the city arms, which are " a 
field covered with dead bodies." Thunders field, in Sur- 
rey, is a survival of the ancient worship of the Anglo- 
Saxon god Thmior, in Danish Thor, in Dutch Bonder, and 
in English Thunder. Fairfield, Marshfield, Bloomfield, 
Hart field speak for themselves. So do the Dutch Blau- 
velt, Rosevelt, Westervelt, Harteveld, etc. 

Combe is a common word in England and northern 
France, meaning " a cup-shaped depression in the hills." 
It enters into. the formation of many English local names, 
as Famcombe, Hascombe, Newcomb, Compton (a contraction 
of Combe-ton), etc. The word also existed in Welsh in the 
form cwm, pronounced coom, and with the same meaning. 
Cum bychan literally means " a little combe." Out of 
Wales all these names appear in their Saxonized form, as 
Wycombe, Gatcomb, Appledurcomb, and so they are even in 
those parts where the Celtic element is strongest. In 
Devonshire there is an Ilfracombe, a Yarcombe, a Luscombe, 
and a Combe Martin ; and the combes among the Mendip 
hills are very numerous. The Celtic County of Cumber- 
land has been supposed to take its name from the combes 
with which it abounds. 1 

The Dutch word meer, " a lake," is found in Lichmere, 
Uggmere, Windermere, Buttermere, and Eastermaer. Vliet, 
which in Dutch means " a flow of water," as Meervliet, 
Watervliet, is found with the same meaning in Ebbfieet, 
Southfieet, Northfleet, Portfleet, etc. The Fens in Cambridge- 
shire and Huntingdonshire are named after the veens in 
Friesland and elsewhere in Holland, which are swampy 
lands formed by a natural accumulation of decayed vege- 
table substance, occurring in strata more or less deep. 
The fuel made of it goes by the name of turf, which, 
as an English word, has gained a more extensive mean- 
ing. The English moor and morass are the Dutch moer 
and moeras. The name of Moerdyk is one that explains 
itself. Holland is full of dykes. It is by means of this 
kind of embankment that, from time immemorial, its low- 
lands have commenced to be reclaimed from the sea and 
overflowing rivers. In Holland they serve as a protec- 
tion against the fury of the waters ; in England a dyke 

1 Anderson, a Cumberland poet, says of his native county : 

" There's CWnvhitton, Cz/^whinton, Czmranton, 
Cumvangan, Cumrew, and Cumcztch, 
And mony mair Cums i' the County, 
But nin wi' C#//zdivock can match." 



190 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



was a " rampart for purposes of defense," and served to 
mark the boundaries between hostile kingdoms. One of 
the most important of these Saxon dykes was the Wans- 
dyke, in Anglo-Saxon times Wodnesdic — the ancient bound- 
ary of Wessex — which still stretches across the downs of 
Somerset and Wilts. Offds Dyke, which stretched from 
Chester to the Wey, guarded the frontiers of Mercia 
against the Welsh ; Grims Dyke, near Salisbury, marks 
the position of the Welsh and Saxon frontier at an earlier 
period ; and the Devil's Dyke served as the defence be- 
tween the kingdom of East Anglia against Mercia. 

But by far the most important elements which enter 
into Anglo-Saxon names are the suffixes ham and ing. 
Like many other Saxon forms already considered, the 
suffix ham signifies primarily " an inclosure ; something 
that hems in " — a meaning not very different from that of 
ton or worth, or even of the Norse by. But while the lat- 
ter syllable is generally found attached to some personal 
Danish name, we find the suffix ham, in the Anglo-Saxon 
charters, united with the names of families only ; never 
with those of individuals. This word, with some phonetic 
modifications, is found in all parts of continental Europe 
whose people contributed to the Saxon conquest of Eng- 
land. In France we find the names Ham, Hame, Hames, 
Le Ham, Le Hamelet, Bazingham, Etreham, Ouistreham, etc., 
as a bequest from the Franks. As we approach the Bel- 
gian frontier, ham passes into hem, as Inghem, Linghem, 
Bouqtdnghem, Hardinghem, Maninghem ; and even into hen, 
as Berlinghen, Massing/ten, Velinghen. Caen was originally 
written Cat hem and Catheim. All along the river Rhine, 
hem takes the form of heim, as Hochheim, Rudesheim, Gei- 
senheim, etc. In Holland it becomes heem, as Heemskerk, 
Heemstede, 1 or else it takes the shorter form of hem, as in 
Arnhem, Gorinchem, or even of em, as in Haarlem. Hem 
or em becomes um in Friesland, as Boerum, Dokkum, Wie- 
rum, Ryssum, Witmarsum ; and all along the coast-line of 
Hanover we find such names as Bornum, Eihim, Hallum, 
Berlikum, etc. Then, again, it changes into om, as Blari- 
com, Heukelom, in which form we find it in the old Friesian 
settlement of Holderness in Yorkshire, as Nezvsom, Rysom, 
and even as am in the village names of Arram and Argam, 
in the same district. Elsewhere in England it assumes 
the form ham, generally attached to some family name, as 

1 The English word " homestead " is a literal translation from the Dutch. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



I 9 I 



Ingham, Lingham, Banningham, Billingham, Birmingham, 
Buckingham, Brantingham, Cardingham, Hardingham, Wool- 
singham ; sometimes as a suffix to a word descriptive of 
the site, as Farnham, which still abounds in ferns, and Den- 
ham, which lies in a snug den. Langham, Higham, Wind- 
ham, and Shoreham explain themselves. Walt ham is " the 
home in the wood or the weald." Durham has not the 
same origin. In this word the suffix is not the Saxon 
ham, but the Norse holm. It was written Dunholm in the 
Saxon Chronicle A. D. 1072 ; and Dunelm, which is the sig- 
nature of the bishop, further reminds us that the prefix is 
the Celtic dun, " a hill fort," and not ditr, the Welsh word 
for " water." 

The suffix ing, so frequent in Dutch names, as Budding, 
Groening, Wilmerding, or with the addition of en in local 
names, as Groningen, Harlingen, Vlissingen, Wieringen, Vlaar- 
dingen, Scheveningen, Wageningen, etc., and found wherever 
the Saxons, Franks, and Friesians had their settlements, 
occurs in the names of a multitude of English villages and 
hamlets, often as a simple suffix, as in the case of Barking, 
Dorking, Harling, Hastings ; but more frequently as the 
medial syllable of names ending in ham or ton, as Birming- 
ham, Buckingham, Wellingham, Kensington, Islington, Welling- 
ton, etc. This syllable ing was the usual patronymic among 
the early Saxon settlers, 1 and had with them very much 
the same significance as the prefix Mac in Scotland, y in 
Ireland, Ap in Wales, or Beni among the Arabs. A whole 
tribe, claiming to be descended from a real or mythic pro- 
genitor, or a body of adventurers attaching themselves to 
the standard of some chief, were thus distinguished by a 
common patronymic or clan name. 2 This kind of family 
bond was the ruling power which directed the Teutonic 
colonization of England, and the Saxon immigration was 
doubtless an immigration of such associations. It existed 
in Roman times, and probably continued on a more ex- 
tensive scale, for a century or so, during the intervals be- 
tween the larger expeditions, which achieved the con- 
quest of the island. Britain was an attractive land for 
those who wanted to better themselves, and leave the un- 
healthy, marshy tracts of Friesland and of Holland. In 

1 In the Saxon Chronicle, A. D. 547, we read : " Ida waes Eopping ; Eoppa 

waes Esing ; Esa wass Inguing ; Ingui, Angenwiting " ; that is : Ida was Eop- 

pa's son ; Eoppa was Esa's son ; Esa was Ingwy's son ; Ingwy, Angenwit's son. 

2 The Scotch word clan is here purposely used to indicate the patriarchal 

nature of the Teutonic family bond. See page 118. 



1 92 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

that case the head of the family built or bought a ship, 
and embarked in it with his wife and children, his freed- 
men, and his neighbors, and established a family colony 
on any shore to which the winds might carry him. The 
subsequent Scandinavian colonization was, on the other 
hand, wholly or mainly effected by soldiers of fortune, 
who abandoned domestic ties at home, and, after a few 
years of piracy, settled down with the slave women whom 
they had carried off from the shores of France, Spain, or 
Italy, or else roughly wooed the daughters of the soil 
which their swords had conquered. Thus the Scandina- 
vian adventurers Grim, Orm, Hacon, or Asgar, left their 
names at Grimsby, Ormsby, Haconby, and Asgarby, whereas 
in the Saxon districts of the island we find the names, 
not of individuals, but of tribes or parts of tribes, or, as 
the Scots would call them, clans. It is these family settle- 
ments which are denoted by the syllable ing. 

Where this patronymic stands without any suffix, as 
in the case of Mailing, Dorking, Woking, it is supposed that 
we have the original settlements of the clan, and that, 
where we find it with the suffix ham or ton subjoined, the 
name denotes the filial colonies sent out from the parent 
settlement ; which seems to be proved from the way in 
which these patronymics are distributed throughout the 
English counties. By a reference to the map of England, 
it will be seen that the names of the former class are 
chiefly found in the southeastern districts of the island, 
where the earliest Teutonic settlements were found, name- 
ly, in Kent, Sussex, Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, Suffolk, 
and the adjoining counties, and that they gradually dimin- 
ish in frequency as we proceed toward the northern and 
western counties. Still farther to the west, as in Glouces- 
tershire and Warwickshire, the names of the former class 
are very rare ; those of the second abound. In the semi- 
Celtic districts of Derbyshire, Devonshire, and Lancashire, 
names of either class become scarce ; while in Cumber- 
land, Westmoreland, Cornwall, and Monmouth, they are 
wholly or almost wholly wanting. This remarkable dis- 
tribution of the simple ending ing, and the compound 
forms ingham or ington, in English local names, can not be 
accidental, and seems to indicate, as is now believed, that 
the Saxon rule was gradually extended over the western 
and central districts by the descendants of families already 
settled in the island, and not by fresh immigrants arriving 
from abroad. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



193 



Now, whence came originally all these Teutonic immi- 
grants whom the Roman Notitia refers to as Saxons, and 
who are mentioned by British authors afterward by no 
other name, 1 is a question already partially answered by 
a comparison of local names in England and on the Con- 
tinent, and which may be further solved by a careful ex- 
amination of the map of those parts of Western Europe 
where Saxons, Franks, and Friesians have been generally 
located. That the Franks, especially the Salian Franks, 
formed no considerable part of them is quite evident from 
the many names in the old French provinces of Picardy 
and Artois, which the Franks brought there from Hot- 
land, 2 and which are, most of them, identically the same 
with village names to be found in England. The Dutch 
word tuin, for instance, in English tun, toun, ton, is there 
reproduced, as clearly and correctly as French orthogra- 
phy can make it, in the suffix thun. Thus — 

Frethun in France is Freton in England. 
Allencthun Allington " 

Colincthun Collin gton " 

Pelincthun Pallington " 

Podincthun " Poddington " 

With the suffix ham, hem, hen, the resemblance is still 
more apparent. Thus we find — 

Bazingham in France and Bassingham in England. 

Balinghem 

Fringhem 

Hardinghem 

Inghem 

Linghein 

Losinghem 

Maninghem 

Berlinghen 

Elinghen 

Masinghen 

Velinghen 

A comparison of such names, which are numerous in 
both countries, renders it quite evident that the same fami- 
lies which gave their names to many English villages had 
also their representatives in that part of northwestern 
France which was settled by the Salian Franks. Even 

1 Even now the Welsh and the Bretons, the Gaels of Scotland, the Irish, 
and the Manxmen, respectively, call the English Saeson, Saoz, Sasunnaich, and 
Sagsonach. 2 See page 107. 



it 


Ballingham 


n 


tt 

a 


Erringham 
Hardingham 


tt 

It 


a 


Ingham 


tt 


tt 
a 
a 
u 
a 


Lingham 

Lossingham 

Manningham 

Birlingham 

Ellingham 


tt 
tt 
tt 
a 
tt 


« 


Massingham 


a 


a 


Wellingham 


tt 



194 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



before we hear of them under that name, we find them in- 
troduced into Gaul as subsidized colonists, by the Roman 
rulers, to defend the frontier. They were then called 
LcBtiy 1 and, according- to the Notitia, there were Batavian 
Lceti at Arras. The Emperor Julian transported thousands 
of the Chattuari, Chamavi, and Frisii to the neighborhood 
of Amiens, Beauvais, and Langres. 2 The system was con- 
tinued at a later period. Charlemagne transported into 
France a vast multitude of Saxons ; 3 but, though many of 
the German names in France may be due to these forced 
emigrations, there is no doubt that by far the greater 
number are records of the settlements of the Frank and 
Burgundian conquerors. In the southern portion of what 
was known in mediseval times as Franken or Franconia, 
" the land of the Eastern Franks," the suffix en for ham is 
almost universal in local names, whereas in Westphalia, 
which has been generally assumed to be the original home 
of the Saxons, it assumes the form of hausen, which also 
conveys the meaning, it is true, of "scattered dwellings; 
a hamlet," but is too remote in sound and form from the 
suffix ham to be considered a phonetic variety of that 
Teutonic word. Still a large number of families whose 
names are found in Westphalian settlements with the suf- 
fix hausen, are also represented in English village names 
with the suffix ham or ton, as will be seen by the following 
list of family names corresponding to their settlements in 
both Westphalia and England : 



FAMILIES. 


WESTPHALIA. 


ENGLAND. 


sEscings 


Assinghausen 


Assington 


B&dlings 


Betlinghausen 


Bedlington 


Billings 


Billinghausen 


Billingham 


Bennings 


Benninghausen 


Bennington 


Birlings 


Berlinghausen 


Birlingham 


Cidings 


Keddinghausen 


Keddington 


Cyllings 


Kellinghausen 


Kellington 


JDeddings 


Dedinghausen 


Dedington 


Frilings 


Frilingha use ft 


Frilinghurst 


Heddings 


Heddinghausen 


Heddingham 


Hellings 


Helling hausen 


Hellinghill 


Hemings 


Hemingha us en 


Hemington 


Lceferings 


Levering hausen 


Leverington 


Lullings 


Lollinghausen 


Lullington 



1 See pages 207 and 466. 

2 Latham, Channel Islands ; Nationalities of Europe, ii, p. 294. 

3 Annal. Laureshamenses, vol. i, pp. 119, 120. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



195 



FAMILIES. 

Millings 

Mcessings 

Rcetlings 

Rillings 

Sydlings 

Wealings 

Wcerings 



WESTPHALIA. 

Millinghausen 

Messinghausen 

Ratlinghausen 

Rielinghausen 

Siedlinghausen 

Velli?ighausen 

Weringhausen 



ENGLAND. 

Miliington 

Massingham 

Ratlinghope 

Rillington 

Sydling 

Wellington 

Werrington 



These double suffixes, ington, ingham, inghem, inghen y 
derived from family names, often take the form igny in 
northern France, as — 



FAMILIES. 


FRANCE. 


ENGLAND. 


jElings 


Alligny 


Allington 


Anting s 


Antigny 


Antingham 


Ar rings 


Arrigny 


Arrington 


A r tings 


Artigny 


Artington 


Boelings 


Baligny 


Ballingham 


Berrings 


Berigny 


Berrington 


Bobbings 


Bobigny 


Bobbington 


Bontings 


Bontigny 


Bondington 


Brantings 


Brantigny 


Brantingham 


Bullings 


Bullingny 


Bullingham 


Callings 


Caligny 


Callington 


Cofings 


Cauvigny 


Covington 


Dartings 


Dartigny 


Dartington 


Hidings 


Hadigny 


Haddington 


Leasings 


Lassigny 


Leasingham 


Lings 


Ligny 


Lingham 


Mcerings 


Marigny 


Marrington 


Maessings 


Massigny 


Massingham 


Peelings 


Baligny 


Pallingham 


Polings 


Boligny 


Pollington 


Remings 


Remigny 


Remington 


Seafings 


Savigny 


Seavington 


Sulings 


Soulangy 


Sallington 


Syfings 


Sevigny 


Sevington 



It is difficult to account for all these resemblances on 
the ordinary theory that England was colonized exclu- 
sively by the Saxons and Angles, and France by the Franks 
and Burgundians. A large number of Frank adventurers 
must have joined in the descents which the Saxons made 
on the English coast, and many Saxons must have found 
a place in the ranks of the Frankish armies which con- 
quered northwestern France. The chroniclers, when 
mentioning the earlier invasions and piratical attacks, at- 



196 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

tribute them to Franks and Saxons, 1 and when on eastern 
France to Saxons and Lombards in conjunction. The 
tribes between the Rhine and the Elbe — Franks, Saxons, 
Angles, Sueves, Lombards, and Burgundians — were prob- 
ably united by a much closer connection — ethnological, 
geographical, and political, than is commonly supposed. 
Indeed, there is strong reason for believing that the names 
of Frank, Saxon, or Lombard are not true ethnic names, 
but that they were only the designations of temporary 
confederations for military purposes, and that these names 
were derived from their usual armament, the franca, scax, 
or the lang-barta? 

Guided by this geographical nomenclature the reader, 
on scanning the map of England, will be able to form an 
idea of the many nationalities which, under the general 
names of Celts, Saxons, and Danes, were to be found in 
England at the end of the tenth century. He will find 
the Celts as a body in possession of Ireland, the western 
coast of England, almost all of Scotland, and the remain- 
der dispersed among the Saxons and the Danes. The 
Saxons he will find distributed over the rest of England, 
with the exception, however, of the eastern and northern 
shires, where the Danish conquest has left its deepest im- 
press, and where even at this day the popular language 
would be strictly intelligible to a Dane or a Norwegian, 
were it not for the French words which the Norman con- 
quest subsequently introduced in great numbers. This 
difference of dialect is, moreover, invariably accompanied 
by a difference in customs and manners, and certain local 
traditions which, disappearing but slowly before the in- 
dustries of modern civilization, still point to those times 
when fear and distrust kept each family in its own town, 
each individual in his own family ; when the cultivator 
went armed to the field, and shut himself up at night in 
his walled town, his borough; when the inhabitants of 
neighboring villages looked upon each other as enemies, 
considering every journey dangerous, every business risky, 
and never marrying but among themselves. Their dia- 
lects differed often so much as in many instances to be 
unintelligible to people living in each other's immediate 
vicinity. 

1 Eutropius, Julian, and Ammianus Marcellinus, associate the Franks and 
Saxons in this manner. 

2 A long pole terminating in a battle-axe, and overtopped by a spear-head ; 
a halbert. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



197 



It was impossible that in such circumstances the na- 
tional character should not have become deteriorated, and 
that the country should not have lagged behind in the 
career of wealth, of the arts, of literature, and of every 
other line of public prosperity and greatness. Accord- 
ingly, at the era of the Norman invasion, England was 
still a country of no account on the political map of Eu- 
rope. Some foreign commerce was springing up under 
Edward the Confessor; but still its intercourse, either 
commercial or of any other description, except with Nor- 
mandy, was apparently very limited. A certain degree 
of excellence, indeed, seems to have been attained by its 
artists in some kinds of ornamental work, in the fabrica- 
tion of trinkets and other articles of luxury, 1 as is shown 
by the immense spoils of William, of which he sent a 
large part to the churches and monasteries in Normandy, 
and a taste for which probably prevailed among the 
wealthier inhabitants of England ; and on a first view we 
might be disposed to conjecture that other and more 
necessary kinds of industry must needs have also flour- 
ished where there was room and encouragement for the 
exercise of this species of refined and expensive ingenuity. 
But nothing can be more unsafe and fallacious than such 
a mode of inference, by which some particular feature is 
taken to indicate in one age, or country, or state of socie- 
ty, the same thing which it would indicate in another. It 
would be quite unwarrantable to assume the existence of 
any general wealth or refinement among the English of 
the eleventh century merely from their passions of show 
and glitter, which, in its lower manifestations, is an instinct 
of the rudest savages ; and, even when directed with very 
considerable taste, may co-exist both with the most im- 
perfect civilization and with much general poverty and 
squalor, as we see it doing in eastern countries at the 
present day. No other species of art or manufacture, ex- 
cept the ordinary trades required for the supply of their 
most common necessities, appears to have been practiced 
among them. But the backward and declining condition 
of the country was most expressively evinced by the la- 
mentable decay of all liberal knowledge among all classes 

1 The production of such jewels has been ascribed to monks, who, accord- 
ing to Malmesbury, were the most skilled artists of that period in England, so 
much so that curious reliquaries, finely worked and set with precious stones, were 
called throughout Europe opera Anglica. — J. A. Weisse, Origin, Progress, and 
Destiny of the English Language and Literature, p. 131. 



1 98 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

of people. The oldest historians are unanimous in their 
attestations to the general ignorance and illiteracy that 
prevailed among the English of the age. Ordericus Vi- 
talis, a contemporary writer, and himself a native of Eng- 
land, describes his countrymen as a rustic and illiterate 
people. Malmesbury, another Englishman, writing sixty 
or seventy years later, and, as he informs us himself, as 
much a Saxon as a Norman by descent, assures us that 
when the Normans first came over, the greater number 
of the English clergy could hardly read the church serv- 
ice, and that, as for anything like learning, they were 
nearly to a man destitute of it ; if any of them understood 
grammar, he was admired and wondered at by the rest as 
a prodigy. The English monks are described by him as 
stupid and barbarous, and even the archbishop and bish- 
ops, in Edward's time, as having been illiterate men. 
The rest of his account represents the upper classes in 
general as sunk in sloth and self-indulgence, and addicted 
to the coarsest vices. Many of the nobility, he says, had 
given up attending divine service in church altogether, 
and, as a class, were universally given to gluttonous feed- 
ing and drunkenness, continuing over their cups for whole 
days and nights, and spending all their incomes in riotous 
feasts, at which they ate and drank to excess, without 
any display either of refinement or of magnificence. The 
dress, the houses, and all the domestic accommodations 
of the people of all ranks are stated to have been mean 
and wretched in the extreme. 1 

Even long before the Norman conquest, the native 
language of England had commenced to fall into con- 
tempt among the upper classes, and French to be substi- 
tuted in its stead. As early as the year 952, it was a com- 
mon practice among the English nobles to send their sons 
to France for education, 2 and not only the language but 
the manners of the French were esteemed the most polite 
of accomplishments. In the reign of Edward the Con- 
fessor, the resort of Normans to the English coast was so 
great that the affectation of imitating the French customs 
became almost universal, 3 and even the lower classes of 

1 Willelm Malmesbury, de gest. rer. Angl, lib. iii, pag. ioi, etc. 

2 Ob usum armorum, et ad linguae nativaa barbariem tolendam. (Du Chesne, 
vol. iii, pag. 307.) — Warton, History of English Poetry, L. 3. 

3 Coepit ergo, tota terra sub Rege et sub aliis Normannis introductis Angli- 
cos ritus dimittere, et Francorum mores in multis imitari. (Ingulf., Hist Croy- 
land, pag. 895.) 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



1 99 



the people were ambitious of catching the foreign idioms 
to the detriment of the native English, the alphabet of 
which had fallen into discredit and disuse a long time 
previous, and become so difficult and obsolete that few 
beside the oldest men could understand the characters. 
Edward is said to have favored this movement by making 
French the court language ; but if he preferred the use of 
this language, it is more than probable that it was on ac- 
count of his having almost entirely forgotten his native 
English. He was only thirteen years old when he was 
first sent into Normandy ; he was somewhat past forty 
when he ascended the English throne ; so that for twenty- 
seven years he had been accustomed to foreign manners 
and habits, . and to convey all his thoughts and feelings 
through the medium of Norman French. Thus he pre- 
ferred the society of Normans, among whom the best 
years of his life had been passed, to that of his own sub- 
jects, whose civilization and social refinement, owing to 
the terrible wars the nation had been so long engaged in, 
had not kept pace with that of their French neighbors. 
Those, therefore, who hoped to prosper at court, learned 
to speak French, and imitated the dress, the style, and 
manners of the latter. Even in those rude ages fashion 
had her influence and her votaries. Not to know French 
was to acknowledge one's social inferiority ; and, follow- 
ing the example of the court, the rich, the young, and the 
gay of both sexes were not satisfied unless their tunics, 
their chausses, their streamers, and mufflers were cut 
after the latest Norman pattern. 

" England was slumbering in this declining state when 
the Norman conquest, like a moral earthquake, suddenly 
shook its polity and population to their center, crushed 
and hurled into ruin all its ancient aristocracy, destroyed 
the native proprietors of its soil, broke up its corrupt 
habits, thinned its enervated population, kindled a vigor- 
ous spirit of life and action in all classes of its society, and 
excited that national taste for letters, and commenced 
that system of education which, assisted by new sources 
of instruction, produced a love and cultivation of knowl- 
edge which has never since departed from the island." 1 

The conquest of England by William, duke of Nor- 
mandy, in 1066, which is now to be considered, is the last 
territorial conquest that has occurred in Western Europe. 

1 Sharon Turner, History of England, P. 1, ch. iii. 



200 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

Since then there have been only political conquests, far 
different from those in which whole tribes invaded a 
neighboring country, with the avowed purpose of divid- 
ing the conquered territory among themselves, and of 
leaving the people nothing but their lives, on condition of 
keeping quiet and toiling for their new masters. The 
Norman conquest of England having taken place at a 
period less remote than those of the Saxons and Danes, 
we are in possession of documents relating to this epoch 
far more complete than those which refer to previous 
times. Availing ourselves of these data, as collected by 
the best writers on the subject, we will now present, in 
brief outline, such parts as relate to the origin and histo- 
ry of the men who weighed so heavily in the destinies of 
England ; their character and institutions ; their social 
and political relations with the conquered population ; the 
gradual emancipation of the latter, and the final amalga- 
mation of the contending races, which will enable us to 
discuss understandingly with our readers the causes and 
circumstances that led to the fusion of the various idioms 
and dialects once current in England, and the formation 
of the English language. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 2 0I 



CHAPTER V. 

THE NORMANS IN GAUL. 1 

We must here cast a retrospective glance upon the 
history of these northern adventurers who, expelled from 
their own country, had sought their fortune in Gaul, 
where, more successful than their Scandinavian brethren 
in England, they established a permanent dominion in one 
of the best parts of the country, giving the world the in- 
teresting spectacle of a barbarous people civilizing them- 
selves with unexampled rapidity, so much so as, within 
one hundred and fifty years alter their arrival, to be 
ranked among the most influential and most civilized na- 
tions of the age. The prominent part they were then 
about to take in the destinies of England renders it im- 
portant that we should acquaint ourselves with the men 
whose energies had been so well directed, and among 
whom originated many of the best of our present institu- 
tions. 

In a former chapter we had occasion to mention that, 
at the close of the ninth century, Harald Harfager, king 
of one portion of Norway, extended by force of arms his 
power over the remainder, and made of the whole coun- 
try one sole kingdom. This destruction of a number of 
petty states, previously free, did not take place without 
resistance. Not only was the ground disputed inch by 
inch, but, after the conquest was completed, many of the 
inhabitants preferred expatriation and a wandering life 
on the sea to the domination of a foreign ruler. These 
exiles infested the northern seas, ravaged the coasts and 

1 Man en engleiz e en noreiz 
Senefie horn en francheiz ; 
Justez ensemle north e man, 
Ensemle dites done Northman, 
Qo est horn de North en romanz. 
De 90 vint li non as Normanz. 
Normant solent estre apel6, 
E Normendie k'il ont pople\ — Roman de Rou. 
15 



202 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

islands, and constantly labored to excite their countrymen 
to insurrection. Political interest thus rendered the con- 
queror of Norway the most determined enemy of the 
pirates. With a numerous fleet he pursued them along 
the coasts of his own kingdom, and even to the Orcades 
and Hebrides, sinking their vessels, and destroying the 
stations they had formed on many of the islands of the 
northern seas. He, moreover, by the severest laws, pro- 
hibited the practice of piracy and of every species of 
armed exactions throughout his states. 1 

It was an immemorial custom of the Vikings to exer- 
cise upon every coast, without distinction, a privilege 
which they termed strandhug or impressment of provis- 
ions. When a vessel found its stores drawing to an end, 
the pirate crew landed at the first place where they per- 
ceived a flock insecurely guarded, and seizing upon the 
animals, killed them, cut them up, and carried them off 
without payment, or at best, with a payment quite below 
the value. The strandhitg was thus the scourge and ter- 
ror of the country districts which lay along the sea-coast 
or the banks of rivers, and all the more so as it was often 
exercised by men who were not professional pirates, but 
to whom power and wealth gave impunity. 2 

There was at the court of King Harald, among the 
iarls or chieftains of the first rank, a certain Rognvald, 
whom the king greatly loved, and who had served him 
zealously in all his expeditions. Rognvald had several 
sons, all of them noted for their valor. Of these the most 
renowned was Hrolf or Rolf, or, by a sort of euphony 
common to many Teutonic names, Roll. He was so tall 
that, unable to make use of the small horses of his coun- 
try, he always marched on foot, a circumstance which 
procured him the appellation of Gaiingu Rolfur, that is, 
" Roll the Walker." 3 One day when he, with his compan- 
ions, was on his return from a cruise in the Baltic, before 
landing in Norway, he shortened sail off the coast of Wig- 
gen, and there, whether from actual want of provisions, 
or simply availing himself of an opportunity, he exercised 

1 Mallet, Histoite du Danemarck, i, 223. 

2 Depping, Histoire des Expeditions Maritimes des Normands. 

3 Rolfur var vikingur mikill, hann var sva mikill mathur vexti, at engi hestur 
matti bera bann, oc geek hann hvargi sem hann for, hann var kallathur Gaungu 
Rolfur {Harald Harfagers-saga, cap 24), that is : " Rolf was a powerful vikingr, 
and of such a large size that no horse could carry him ; he therefore was obliged 
always to go on foot, whence he was called Gaungu Rolfur (Rollo the Walker). 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



203 



strandhug. It so happened that King- Harald was in the 
vicinity at that moment, and the peasants having laid 
their complaints before him, he at once, without heeding 
the position of the offender, summoned a Thing, or high 
council of justice, to try Roll according to law. Ere the 
accused appeared before the assembly, which would in all 
probability sentence him to banishment, his mother has- 
tened to the king and implored for pardon. But Harald 
was inexorable ; sentence was pronounced ; and Roll, find- 
ing himself banished for life, collected some vessels, and 
sailed toward the Hebrides. There he met a number of 
dissatisfied Norwegians who, after the conquests of Har- 
ald, had emigrated, and who were all men of high birth 
and great military reputation. With these he entered 
into association for the purpose of piracy, and his vessels, 
added to theirs, formed a numerous fleet which, it was 
agreed, should act under the orders, not of one sole chief- 
tain, but of the confederates generally, Roll having no 
other pre-eminence than that of his personal merits and of 
his name. 1 

Sailing from the Hebrides late in the season, the fleet 
doubled the extreme point of Scotland, and effected a 
landing on the east coast of England ; but either that 
their countrymen would not have anything to do with 
them, or that they were prevented from joining them by 
the English, Roll and his companions encountered a body 
of the latter on their way, and lost many of their number. 
Still they managed to hold their own, and to winter on 
the island, living on pillage as usual. Early in spring 
they set sail for the Continent, and entered the Scheldt, 
robbing and taking whatever they could lay their hands 
upon ; but as Flanders, naturally poor and already devas- 
tated on several occasions, offered very little to take, the 
pirates soon put to sea again. Going farther south, they 
sailed up the Seine as far as Jumieges, five leagues from 
Rouen. It was just at this period that the limits of the 
kingdom of France had been definitively fixed between 
the Loire and the Maas. To the protracted territorial 
revolutions which had lacerated that kingdom, there had 
succeeded a political revolution, the object of which, real- 
ized a century later, was the expulsion of the second 
dynasty of the Frank kings. The king; of the French, a 
descendant of Karl the Great, and bearing his name — the 

1 Harald Harfagers-saga, cap. 24 ; Snorre's Heimskringla, i, 100. 



204 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

only resemblance between them — was disputing the crown 
Avith a competitor whose ancestors had never worn that 
crown. The conqueror and the conquered, the king of 
ancient race and the king by election, alternately became 
master ; but neither the one nor the other was powerful 
enough to protect the country against foreign invasion ; 
all the forces of the kingdom were engaged on either side 
in maintaining the civil war ; no army, accordingly, pre- 
sented itself to stay the pirates, or prevent them from pil- 
laging and devastating both banks of the Seine. 1 

The reports of their ravages soon reached Rouen, and 
filled that city with terror. The inhabitants did not ex- 
pect any succor, and despaired of being able to defend 
their walls, already in ruins from former invasions. 
Amidst the universal dismay, the archbishop of Rouen, a 
man of prudence and firmness, took upon himself to save 
the city, by negotiating with the enemy before the attack. 

1 There is still much uncertainty among modern historians as to the exact 
time of Rollo's descent on French soil. Asser, the biographer of Alfred, says it 
was in 876. " Anno dominicae incarnatimis 876 Rollo cum suis Normanniam 
penetravit." — Vita Alfredi. This has been objected to on the ground that 
Asser died in the year 909, which was before Neustria was ceded to the Nor- 
mans, and hence could not have made use of the term Normandy, which was of 
later adoption. It was concluded, therefore, that the above passage was inter- 
polated in subsequent copies of his work. This, however, is not certain, and 
it is more probable that a later copyist has changed the name of Neustria into 
that of Normandy. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says : " A. D. 876, Her Rodla 
thurferde Normandi mid his here, and he rixade fifti vintra." The date may 
have been copied from Asser, but the statement that Rollo reigned fifty winters 
agrees with tradition, which places his death, others say his abdication, at A. D. 
926. As regards the date of his landing, the following chroniclers seem to be 
all agreed. 

Thus the Chronic. Florent. Wigorn., ad ann. 876 says : " Rollo cum suis 
Normanniam penetravit 15 kal. decembris." 

" Anno 876 Rollo paganus, genere Danus, cum suis Normanniam intravit 
et obtinuit, qui postea baptizatus, vocatus est Rodbertus." — Chronica de Mailros. 

" Ann. 876, venit Rollo Danise in Neustriam cum suis, volens earn sibi ac- 
quirere." — Chronic. Fiscanense. 

" Hoc anno 876, Rollo cum suis Normanniam penetravit 15 kal. decem- 
bris."— Chronic. Rotomag.* 

" Hoc anno 876 Rollo cum suis Normanniam acquisivit xv kal. decembris." 
— Chronic. Thosanum {Chronicalia de Normannis, MS. de la Bibliotheque du 
roi, a Paris). 

" Anno 876 Rollo in Normanniam cum suis venit xv kalend. decembris." — 
Chronic. Fontanellense (in cod. monast. S. Michaelis de Monte). 

"An. 876, rege Carolo, Rollo quidam, natione Danus, cum suis Franciam 
intravit." — Vita S. Waningi, torn. II des Acta SS. ord. S. Bened. 

Though a later date is assigned to the event by modern historians, it is not 
the less certain that the historians of the Dukes of Normandy, viz., Dudo de 
Saint Quentin, Guillaume de Jumieges ; the Trouveres Wace and Beneoit de 
Sainte-More, as well as the ecclesiastic historian Ordericus Vitalis, have all 
accepted the same date as correct. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 205 

Without being deterred by the hatred often so cruelly 
testified by the pagans of the north toward the Christian 
clergy, the bishop repaired to their camp near Jumieges, 
and, in the name of the people, spoke to the Norman chief 
through the medium of an interpreter. 1 He did so well 
that he concluded a truce with the enemy, guaranteeing 
them ready admission to the city, and receiving from 
them in return the assurance that no violence should be 
committed by them. So the Norwegians peacefully land- 
ed. Having moored their vessels, the chiefs went through 
the city in different directions ; they carefully examined 
the ramparts, the quays, the fountains, and, finding every- 
thing to their liking, resolved to make it the citadel and 
headquarters of their new establishment. 2 

Evreux and several other neighboring towns next fell 
into the hands of the Normans, who thus extended their 
dominion over the greater part of the territory which 
thus far had been known by the old name of Neustria. 
Guided by a certain political good sense, they ceased to 
be cruel when they no longer encountered resistance, and 
contented themselves with a tribute regularly levied upon 
the towns and country districts. The same good sense 
told them that the time had come to elect a supreme chief, 
invested with permanent authority, and the choice fell on 
Roll, " whom they made their king," says an old chroni- 
cler, which title, in their mind, was probably something 
like sea-king, according to Scandinavian fashion, but which 
was ere long to be replaced by the title of duke, which in 
France was that of any prominent militar}^ leader, corre- 
sponding to the old Latin title dux. 

Though pirates to all intents and purposes, and as such 
not better than their forefathers, the present invaders of 
France were in many respects a different class of men 
from those who for half a century had been harassing the 
English so fearfully. In the age of Rollo the great feature 

1 Lors fist assembler Rou les gens de la ville et du pays, et leur dist qu'il 
entendoit et vouloit illec a. demourer, et y faire sa maistre-ville ; et ils lui dirent 
.... qu'ils n'avoient aucun qui les deffendist, et que s'il lui plaisait de les gar- 
der et deffendre et tenir en justice, ils le tenroient a seigneur, et lui donneroient 
nom de due. — Chronique de Normandie, MS. de la Bibliotheque du Roi, No. 
9857. Et les gens de Rouen et autres ordonnerent que leur archevesque iroit & 
Rou, etmettroit en son obeissance la cite et le pais, et ainsi il fist. — Ibid. 
2 E Rou esgarda la vile e lunge et lee, 
E dehorz e dedenz l'a sovent esgardee ; 
Bone li semble e bele, mult li plest e agree, 
E li compaignonz l'ont a rou mult loee. 

Wace, Roman de Rou., i, 60. 



206 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

of the Northman character was a love of glory, pursuing 
its gratification by an assiduous cultivation of bodily 
strength, agility, and manual dexterity ; and combining 
with the most daring intrepidity, tenacity of purpose, and 
great warlike fortitude. To climb steep and towering 
rocks, and to descend from them rapidly with a heavy 
burden ; to walk on the outer edge of a ship, and even 
outside of it, on the oars, while the men were rowing it ; 
to use both hands alike, and throw two darts at once ; to 
play with three swords, with such correctness of eye and 
nerve that there would always be one in the air while the 
others were caught by the handles, were accomplishments 
of dexterity coveted even by their kings. 1 To hew well 
with the sword, to wrestle, to cast heavy weights, to run 
on skates, to sit firmly on horseback, to swim with vigor, 
to hurl the lance with skill, to manage the oar dexterous- 
ly, were also their warrior's boasts. Vigor in archery was 
an object of emulation ; and they proved their strength 
by sending a blunted spear through a raw bull's hide. 2 
All these qualifications proceeded from the great actuat- 
ing principle of the Northman's mind — the love of per- 
sonal distinction and public admiration. 

Such were the first Normans, who in the beginning of 
the tenth century settled themselves in Normandy ; a 
country which from former devastations had become an 
unpeopled and ruined desert, abandoned to a wild vege- 
tation, and uncultivated in every part. A barbarous peo- 
ple, thus located in a desolate country, might seem to 
promise a perpetuity of barbarism ; but very different 
were the results. The wasted state of Normandy not only 
proved favorable to the growth of the Norman mind, by 
presenting no luxuries or corrupting influences to weaken 
it ; but it made wisdom in the chief, and industry and con- 
stant exertion in his followers, indispensable to their ex- 
istence. It compelled them to be an agricultural as well 
as a warlike people. The character of their chief was 
suited to the exigency ; and Rollo, like Romulus, by his 
prudent regulations, laid the foundations of the improved 
character, and prepared the future triumphs of his rapa- 
cious countrymen. A steady observance of justice in his 
own conduct, and an inflexible rigor toward all offenders, 
gradually produced a love of equity and subordination to 
law among his people which mainly contributed to their 

1 Snorre, Olaf Saga, vol. i, p. 290. 2 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 19. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



207 



future eminence ; while the adoption of Christianity as his 
national religion powerfully accelerated all his legislative 
exertions, by enlightening both himself and his country- 
men, and gradually awakening their moral sensibilities. It 
is related of him that, on returning from the chase, while 
stopping for his midday repast in the forest on the banks 
of the Seine, near Rouen, he hung up his golden brace- 
lets on the branch of an oak while eating. These brace- 
lets remained there for three years, unguarded and un- 
touched, such was under his reign the respect of proper- 
ty, or perhaps also the dread of his justice. 1 He was 
reputed the sternest enemy of robbers, and the most vig- 
orous justiciary of his time in any part of France ; and 
the popularity of his name, spreading far and wide, en- 
couraged many artisans and laborers of the neighboring 
districts to emigrate, and to establish themselves in the 
dominions of Duke Rollo, or Rou, as he was called in 
French. 

As he and his men were all bachelors, they married 
Frankish women ; and the children, of course, being 
brought up mainly by their mothers, in course of time 
spoke all the kinds of French then current in that coun- 
try, so that within two or three generations the difference 
of language which had at first marked the line of separa- 
tion between the invaders and the natives had almost 
ceased to exist, and it was by his importance alone, as be- 
longing to the ruling class, that the Norman of Scandina- 
vian descent was distinguished from the Gallo-Frank. 
Even at Rouen, and in the palace of the successors of 
Rollo, no other language was spoken at the beginning of 
the eleventh century than that called by the name of Ro- 
mance or French. To this, however, the town of Bayeux 
was an exception, the dialect there preserved being a 
mixture of Frankish, Saxon, and Scandinavian, the city 
being originally a Saxon settlement, which had contrived 
to keep up almost intact its ancient ways and language. 2 

1 Guillaume de Jumieges, Trad. Guizot, Hist, des Normands, vol. ii, ch. 17. 
The oak stood near a pond, which since has borne the name of Mare de Rollon. 

2 The Swabian Lceti who, as we learn from the JVotitia, were settled at Ba- 
joccas (Bayeux), may have formed the nucleus of this settlement. In the year 
843 the annalists mention the existence of a district in this neighborhood called 
Otlinga Saxonica, and Gregory of Tours speaks of the Saxones bajocassini. The 
term Otlinga Saxonica, which has elicited so many ingenious etymological guesses, 
does not mean the district where the Saxon language was spoken, but, as Grimm 
has suggested, it was the abode of Saxon nobles, Adelings or sEthelings. — 
Gesck. derDeut. Sprach., p. 626. According to Dudo de St. Quentin, iii, 100, their 



208 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

So, when new emigrants arrived from the north of Europe 
to visit their relatives in Normandy, and to obtain land, 
they established themselves, as a matter of choice, in the 
country about Bayeux, and thus kept up the use of their 
language in that neighborhood. It was for this reason, 
if we may believe one of the chroniclers, that the dukes of 
Normandy sent thither their children to learn to speak 
Danish as a matter of pride, or perhaps of policy. 1 The 
Danes and Norwegians maintained relations of alliance 
and of affection with Normandy so long as they found in 
a similarity of language a token of their ancient national 
consanguinity ; but when the use of French became gen- 
eral throughout Normandy, the Scandinavians ceased to 
look upon the Normans as their natural allies by blood ; 
they even ceased to give them the name of Normans, but 
called them Velskes or Welches, 2 by which name they 
designated indiscriminately the entire population of Gaul. 
As the old ties of relationship gradually died out, 
the Normans became more and more French in feeling 
and in interest, and what was once called " the pirates' 
land " sank into the most loyal of the fiefs of France. 

language differed but little from the Scandinavian dialects, " qualem decet esse 
sororem." We have already observed elsewhere that the difference between 
the Low Dutch and Scandinavian dialects was much less in those days than at 
present. See page 172. 

1 Dudo de St. Quentin, referring to this subject, places the following words 
in the mouth of Duke William I : Quoniam quidem Rothomagensis civitas ro- 
mana potius quam dacisca utitur eloquentia, et Bajocacensis fruitur frequentius 
dacisca lingua quam romana ; volo igitur ut ad Bajocacensia deferatur quanto- 
cius moenia, et ibi volo ut sit, Botho, sub tua custodia, et enutriatur et edocea- 
tur cum magna diligentia, fervens loquacitate dacisca, tamque discens tenaci 
memoria, ut queat sermocinari profusius olim contra Dacigenas. (Dudo S. 
Quantini, apud du Chesne, 112, D.) 

Beneoit de Sainte-More makes substantially the same statement : 
Si a Roem le faz garder 
Et norrir gaires longement, 
II ne saura parlier neient 
Daneis, kar nul ne l'i parole. 
Si voil qu'il seit a tele escole 
Ou Ten le sache endoctriner 
Que as Daneis sache parler, 
Ci ne sevent riens fors romanz : 
Mais k Baiues en a tanz 
Qui ne sevent si daneis non ; 
Et pur ceo, sir quens Boton, 
Voil que vos l'aiez ensemble od vos ; 
De lui enseigner corius 
Garde e maistre seiez de lui. — Chron. des dues de Norm. 

2 Contes populaires, prtjuges, patois, etc., de V ' arrondissement de Bayeux, par 
Fr6d6ric Pluquet, Rouen, 1834. On the name of Welches, given by all Teu- 
tonic tribes to conquered nations, see pages 20 and 484. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



209 



During the long reign of Richard I 1 the descendants of 
heathen Scandinavian pirates had all become French 
Christians. Even during the reign of Rollo, the clergy 
did them the justice to declare that after their conversion 
they showed but few traces of former paganism. Of 
course, men passing their lives on the high seas had but 
little time to study Scandinavian mythology, and what 
little they knew of it was readily forgotten under different 
influences. Still, under excitement, the old heathen was 
apt to come out again, and in more than one engagement 
the cry of Thor aide was heard for a long time after, in- 
stead of Dieu aide, which was the battle cry of the Nor- 
mans in the eleventh century. By that time all traces of 
paganism had well nigh disappeared, except an unshaken 
faith in elves, mountain dwarfs, 2 werewolves, 3 and the like, 
which they had in common with the Britons, the Saxons, 
and all other Celtic and Teutonic nations in general. 

1 Rollo died in the year 926 ; William I died in the year 943 ; Richard I 
died in the year 1002 ; Richard II died in the year 1026 ; Robert I died in the 
year 1035 ; William II (the Conqueror) died in the year 1087. 

2 Mauger, a prelate of Rouen, who was charged with practising magic, was 
believed to own one of these hobgoblins, called Thoret, after Thor, and who 
could be neither heard nor seen, but was at the command of the prelate at any 
moment, day or night, and did the most awful things. It is thus referred to by 
Wace, in his Roman de Rou t v. 9713, and following : 

Plusors distrent por ve'rite, 

Ke un deable aveit prive, 

Ne sai s'estait lutin u non, 

Toret se feseit apeler, 

E Toret se feseit nomer. 

E quant Maugier parler voleit, 

Toret appelout, si veneit. 

Plusors les poeient oi'r, 

Mais nuz d'els nes poet veir. 
8 The werewolf was called in Frenchgarwal, garul, garoul, garou, loup-garou ; 
and bisdaveret in Breton. This is the way Marie de France describes the thing : 

Bisclaveret ad nun en Bretan 

Garwal l'apelent li Norman. 

Jadis le poet-hum oir, 

E souvent souleit avenir, 

Hunes plusurs garwal devindrent, 

E es boscages meisun tindrent. 

Garwal si est beste salvage ; 

Tant cum il est en cele rage, 

Humes devure, grant mal fait, 

Es granz forest converse e vait. 
In some parts of France they called it garulf gerulf, whence the Low 
Latin gerulpkus, found in the following passage of Gervais de Tilbury, quoted 
by du Cange : " Vidimus enim frequenter in Anglia per lunationes homines in 
lupos mutari, quod hominum genus gerulphos Galli nominant, Angli vero were- 
wolf dicunt ; were enim anglice virum sonat, wolf lupum." — Otia imperal., 
pars. i. 



2io ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

As in England, so in France, the conversion of the 
northern heathens was, at first at least, a matter of diplo- 
matic arrangement rather than of sincere conviction, so 
we must not expect any great fervor at first among the 
chiefs and principal nobles in the observance of the new 
doctrines ; but no sooner had the religious movement 
spread to the people than it was welcomed with an almost 
passionate fanaticism. Every road was crowded with pil- 
grims, monasteries rose in every forest glade, and Nor- 
mandy, which had now become the principal center of 
religion and of science, soon boasted of its schools of 
Rouen, Caen, Fontenelle, Lisieux, Fecamp, and a count- 
less number of minor renown. Often it was far away 
from the noise and bustle of city life, in the deep solitudes 
of dense forests, that could be found an asylum devoted to 
study and religious meditation. Thus arose, in an island 
of the Seine, the famous abbey of Jumieges, surrounded 
by its forests, its meadows, and its silence. The abbey 
of Bee, more celebrated still, and of which we may still 
see the ruins near the small town of Brionne, in the midst 
of a high forest by the side of a brook, was the seat where 
once taught the Italian monk Lanfranc, one of the most 
learned men of the age, and after him the Piedmontese 
Anselm, a man still more eminent, and his pupil. In the 
course of a few years their teaching had made Bee the 
most famous school of Christendom, before they succes- 
sively filled the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury. The 
whole mental activity of the time seemed concentrated in 
the group of scholars who gathered around them, and 
who, spreading their knowledge to other seminaries of 
learning, caused the Normans of the eleventh century to 
become the most polished and best educated nation of 
Europe, and their schools to be the resort of students 
from all the surrounding countries. 

It was, however, not always this thirst for knowledge, 
or the new form of religious faith only, which drove Nor- 
man pilgrims in flocks to the shrines of Italy and the Holy 
Land. Often the old Norse spirit of adventure turned 
the Pilgrims into Crusaders, and at one time the flower 
of the Norman knighthood, impatient of the stern rule of 
their dukes, followed Roger de Toesny against the mos- 
lem of Spain, or even enlisted under the banner of the 
Greeks, in their war with the Arabs, who had conquered 
Sicily. The Crusaders became conquerors under Robert 
Guiscard, a knight who had left his home with a single 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 2 II 

follower, but whose valor and wisdom soon placed him at 
the head of his fellow-soldiers in Italy. Attacking the 
Greeks, whom they had hitherto served, the Norman 
knights wrested Apulia from them in an overthrow at 
Cannae ; Guiscard himself led them to the conquest of 
Calabria and the great trading cities of the coast, while 
thirty years of warfare gave Sicily to the followers of his 
brother Roger. The two conquests were united under a 
line of princes to whose munificence art owes the splen- 
dor of Palermo and Monreale, and literature the first out- 
burst of Italian song. Normandy, still seething with vig- 
orous life, was stirred to greed and enterprise by this 
plunder of the south, and the rumor of Guiscard's ex- 
ploits roused into more ardent life the daring ambition of 
its nobles and their duke. Constantly surrounded by 
danger, and always on the alert, their warlike energies 
had never had leisure to abate, and from their perpet- 
ual exertions the Normans, whether at home or abroad, 
had become everywhere distinguished for their indomita- 
ble valor and their great skill in war. 

We thus see in the Scandinavian settlers in Gaul, after 
they had put on the outward garb of their adopted coun- 
try, a people restless and enterprising above all others, 
adopting and spreading around them all that they could 
make their own, in their new land and everywhere else — 
a people in many ways highly gifted, greatly affecting 
and modifying every country in which they settled, and so 
identifying themselves with its interests as to gradually 
lose themselves among the people of the land. In this 
respect, as in many others, the expeditions of the Nor- 
mans in Gaul may be looked upon as continuations of the 
Danish expeditions in England. The people were by de- 
scent the same, and both were led by the same old spirit 
of war and adventure. Their national character remained 
largely the same in both countries ; but even as the Danes 
in England in course of time became English, so the Nor- 
mans, in contact with what remained of Roman civiliza- 
tion, became French in religion, in language, in law, and 
in society, in thoughts and feelings in all matters. The 
change was as rapid as it was thorough and effective. 
The early part of the tenth century was the time of the 
settlement of the Northmen in Gaul ; by the end of it, 
any traces of heathen faith, or of Scandinavian speech, re- 
mained only here and there as mere survivals. The new 
creed, the new speech, the new social system had taken 



212 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

such deep root that the descendants of the Scandinavian 
settlers were better fitted to be the armed missionaries of 
all these things than the neighbors from whom they had 
wrested their new possessions. With the zeal of new 
converts, they set forth on their new errand very much in 
the spirit of their heathen forefathers. The same spirit 
of enterprise which brought the Northmen into Gaul 
seems to carry the Normans out of Gaul into every cor- 
ner of the world. Their character is well painted by a 
contemporary historian of their exploits. 1 He sets the 
Normans before us as a race specially marked by cunning, 
despising their own inheritance in the hope of winning a 
greater, eager after both gain and dominion, given to imi- 
tation of all kinds, holding a certain mean between lavish- 
ness and greediness — that is, perhaps uniting, as they cer- 
tainly did, these two seemingly opposite qualities. Their 
chief men, he adds, were specially lavish through their 
desire of good report. They were, moreover, very skill- 
ful in flattery, given to the practice of fine speaking, so 
that the very boys were orators and natural debaters ; a 
race altogether unbridled, unless held firmly down by the 
yoke of justice. They could endure toil, hunger, and cold, 
whenever ill-fortune sent them ; they were fond of hunt- 
ing and hawking, and delighted in the pleasure of horses, 
and of all the weapons and garb of war. But if the Nor- 
man was a born soldier, he was also a born lawyer. It is 
the excessive litigiousness, the fondness for law, legal 
forms, legal processes, which has ever been characteristic 
of the Norman people. Even Norman lawlessness in some 
sort took a legal shape. In the worst days of Norman 
history, the robber-baron could generally give elaborate 
reasons for every act of wrong that he did. For the rest, 
strict observers of form in all matters, the Normans at- 
tended to the forms of religion with special care. No 
people were more bountiful to ecclesiastical bodies on 
both sides of the Channel ; and strict attendance to re- 

1 Geoffrey Malaterra, i, 3. " Es quippe gens astutissima, injuriarum ultrix, 
spe alias plus lucrandi, patrios agros vilipendens, quaestus et dominationis avida, 
cujuslibet rei simulatrix, inter largitatem et avaritiam quoddam medium ha- 
bens. Principes vero delectatione bonae famse largissimi, gens adulari sciens, 
eloquentiis in studiis inserviens in tantum, ut etiam ipsos puei'os quasi rhetores 
attendas, quae quidem, nisi jugo justiciae prematur, effrenatissima est ; laboris, 
inediae, algoris, ubi fortuna expedit, patiens, venationi accipitrum exercitio in- 
serviens. Equorum, caeterorumque militiae instrumentorum, et vestium luxuria 
delectatur. Ex nomine itaque suo terrae nomen indiderunt North, quippe 
Anglica lingua aquilonaris plaga dicitur. Et quia ipsi ab aquilone venerant ter- 
rain ipsam etiam Normanniam appellarunt," 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



213 



ligious observances, as well as a wide bounty to religious 
foundations, may be set down as national characteristics 
of the Normans. 

Such were the people among- whom Edward, son of 
Ethelred and Emma, sister of Richard II, Duke of Nor- 
mandy, had spent the days of his youth before ascending 
the throne of England, and who, from the joint effects of 
situation, exigencies, wise legislation, Christianity, and 
natural energy, had so much improved within one hun- 
dred and fifty years, after they had quitted the Baltic, as 
to be described in the following manner by a historian of 
the country which they had most afflicted : " Their dukes," 
he says, " as they were superior to all others in war, so 
they as much excelled their contemporaries in their love 
of peace and liberality. All their people lived harmo- 
niously together, like one great body of relations, like one 
family, whose mutual faith was inviolable. Among them, 
every man was looked upon as a robber who, by false- 
hood, endeavored to overreach another in any transac- 
tion. They took assiduous care of their poor and dis- 
tressed, and of all strangers, like parents of their children ; 
and they sent the most abundant gifts to the Christian 
churches in almost every part of the world." 1 

1 Glaber Rodolphus, c. v, p. 8. 



214 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 

From the time of Rollo's settlement in Normandy, the 
communications of the Normans with England had be- 
come more and more frequent and important for the two 
countries. The success of the invasions of the Danes in 
England in the tenth century, and the reigns of three 
kings of the Danish line, had obliged the princes of the Sax- 
on race to take refuge in Normandy, the duke of which, 
Richard I, had given his daughter Emma in marriage to 
their grandfather Ethelred II. At the end of the Danish 
rule in England, a national message was sent to Prince 
Edward in Normandy, to announce to him that the people 
had elected him king, upon condition that he should bring 
but few Normans with him. Edward obeyed, and came 
attended by very few followers. On his arrival he was 
proclaimed king, and crowned in the cathedral of Win- 
chester, A. D. 1042. On handing him the crown and scep- 
ter, the bishop made him a long speech upon the duties 
of royalty, and the mild and equitable government of his 
Anglo-Saxon predecessors. As he was unmarried, he 
selected for his queen Edith, daughter of the powerful 
and popular man to whose influence especially he owed 
his kingdom — Godwin, the father of Harold, who ere long 
was to play a part as short as it is memorable in the his- 
tory of England. The withdrawal of the Danes, and the 
complete destruction of their dominion, by awakening 
patriotic thoughts, had rendered the old Anglo-Saxon 
customs dearer to the people. They desired to restore 
them in all their pristine purity, freed from all that the 
mixture of races had added to them of foreign matter. 
This wish led them to revert to the times which preceded 
the great Danish invasion, to the reign of Ethelred, whose 
institutions and laws were sought out with a view to their 
establishment. Their restoration took place to the utmost 
extent possible ; the name of King Edward became con- 
nected with it, and it was soon a popular saying that this 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 2 I$ 

good king had restored the good laws of his father 
Ethelred. 

Every Dane in any way connected with the former 
government had been expelled ; but the English, restored 
to liberty, did not drive from their habitations the labori- 
ous and peaceable Danes who, swearing obedience to the 
common law, were content to exist simply as cultivators 
or citizens. The Saxon people did not, by way of re- 
prisal, levy extra taxes on them, or render their condition 
worse than their own. In the eastern, and especially in 
the northern provinces, the children of Scandinavians 
continued to exceed in number those of the Anglo-Sax- 
ons ; hence these provinces were distinguished from the 
midland and southern by a remarkable difference of idiom, 
manners, and local customs, but not the slightest resist- 
ance was raised to the government of the Saxon king. 
Social equality soon drew together and fused the two na- 
tions, formerly hostile. This union of all the inhabitants 
of the English soil, proved formidable to foreign invad- 
ers, who stayed their ambitious projects, and no northern 
kings ventured on disturbing the peace that England was 
now enjoying. These kings, on the contrary, sent mes- 
sages of peace and friendship to the peaceable Edward. 
"We will," said they, "allow you to reign unmolested 
over your country, and we will content ourselves with the 
land which God has given us to rule." 

Fortune now seemed favorable to the Anglo-Saxons ; 
but, under this outward appearance of prosperity and in- 
dependence, the germs of fresh troubles and national ruin 
were silently developing themselves. Edward, half a 
Norman by birth, and brought up from his infancy in 
Normandy, had returned almost a stranger to the land of 
his forefathers ; the language of his youth had been that 
of a foreign people ; he had grown old among other men 
and other manners than the manners and men of England ; 
his friends, his companions in pleasures and hardships, his 
nearest relatives, and the husband of his sister, all dwelt 
across the sea. He had sworn to bring with him only a 
small number of Normans ; and but few in fact accompa- 
nied him, but many arrived afterward ; those who had 
loved him when in exile, or assisted him when in poverty, 
eagerly beset his palace. He could not restrain himself 
from welcoming them to his home and his table, nor even 
from preferring them to those formerly unknown to him, 
but to whom he was indebted for his home, his table, and 



2i6 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

his royal dignity. The irresistible strength of old affec- 
tions led him so far astray from the path of prudence as 
to confer the high dignities and great offices of the coun- 
try on men born on other soil, and without any real affec- 
tion for England. The fortresses of the island were 
placed in the keeping of Norman captains ; Norman 
priests obtained English bishoprics, and became chap- 
lains, councilors, and trusted confidants of the king. 

A number of persons styling themselves relatives of 
Edward's mother crossed the straits, and were sure to be 
well received. No one who solicited in the Norman 
tongue ever met with a refusal. This language even ban- 
ished from the palace the Anglo-Saxon, which was be- 
come an object of ridicule to the foreign courtiers, and no 
flattering discourse was any longer addressed to the king 
but in Norman French. Such of the English nobility as 
were most ambitious tried to speak the new and favorite 
language of the court, and even in their own mansions stam- 
mered French as being that fittest for a man of birth and 
education ; they changed their long Saxon mantles for the 
short cloaks of the Normans ; in writing they imitated 
the lengthened form of the Norman letters ; and instead 
of signing their names to civil acts, they suspended to 
them seals of wax, in the Norman manner. Every one of 
the national customs, even in the most indifferent things, 
was abandoned to the lower orders. 

But the people who had shed their blood that Eng- 
land might be free, and who were little struck by the 
grace and elegance of the new fashions, imagined that 
they beheld the government by foreigners revived under 
a mere change of appearances. They cursed the fatal 
marriage of Ethelred with a Norman woman, that union, 
contracted to save the country from a foreign invasion, 
but from which there now resulted a new invasion, a new 
conquest, under the mask of peace and friendship. 1 

Among those who came from Normandy and France 
to visit King Edward, the most considerable was William, 

1 We find the trace, perhaps indeed the original expression of these nation- 
al maledictions, in a passage of an ancient historian, in which the singular turn 
of idea and the vivacity of the language seem to reveal the style of the people : 
" The Almighty must have formed, at the same time, two plans of destruction 
for the English race, and have desired to lay for them a sort of military ambus- 
cade ; for he let loose the Danes on one side, and on the other carefully created 
and cemented the Norman alliance ; so that if by chance we escaped from the 
open assaults of the Danes, the bold cunning of the Normans might still be in 
readiness to surprise us." — Henry Huntingdon, Hist. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



217 



Duke of Normandy, bastard son of Robert, the late duke, 
whose violent temper had acquired for him the name of 
Robert le Diable. In his journey through England, A. D. 
105 1, he might have believed that he was still in his own 
territories. The fleet which he found at Dover was com- 
manded by Normans ; at Canterbury Norman soldiers 
composed the garrison of the fort ; elsewhere other Nor- 
mans came to salute him in the dress of captains or of 
prelates. Edward's favorites came to pay their respects 
to the chief of their native country ; and, to use the lan- 
guage of that day, " thronged round their natural lord." 
William appeared in England more like a king than Ed- 
ward himself ; and it was, probably, not long before his 
ambitious mind conceived the hope of becoming so with- 
out difficulty at the death of that prince, so much the 
slave of Norman influence. Indeed, such thoughts could 
not fail to arise in the breast of the son of Robert ; how- 
ever, according to the testimony of a contemporary, he 
kept them perfectly secret, and never spoke of them to 
Edward, believing that things would of themselves take 
the course most to the advantage of his ambition. 1 Nor 
did Edward, whether or not he thought of those projects, 
and of his having some day his friend and cousin for a 
successor, converse with him on the subject during his 
visit, yet he received him with great tenderness, and load- 
ed him with all sorts of presents and assurances of affec- 
tion. 

At the death of Godwin, which took place in 1054, his 
eldest son, Harold, succeeded him in the command of all 
the country south of the Thames. He distinguished him- 
self by his military talents, fully paid to the king that re- 
spectful and submissive deference of which he was so 
jealous, and thus added rapidly to his renown and popu- 
larity among the Anglo-Saxons. Some ancient recitals 
say that even Edward loved him, and treated him like 
his own son ; at least he did not feel toward him the kind 
of aversion mixed with fear with which Godwin had in- 
spired him ; nor had he any longer a pretext for detain- 
ing, as guarantees against the son, the two hostages whom 
he had received from the father. Toward the close of 
the year 1065 Harold, the brother of the one and the 
uncle of the other of these hostages, thinking the moment 

1 De successione autem regni, spes adhuc aut mentio nulla facta inter eos 
fuit. — Hist. Ingulf. Croyland apud rer. anglic. Script., vol. i, p. 65. 
16 



218 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

favorable for obtaining- their deliverance, asked the king's 
permission to go and claim them in his name from Will- 
iam, and bring them home to England. Edward, without 
any reluctance to part with the hostages, was alarmed, 
however, at Harold's intention of going into Normandy. 
" I will not restrain thee," said he, " but if thou departest 
it will be without my consent ; for thy journey will cer- 
tainly bring some misfortune upon thyself and upon our 
country. I know Duke William, and his crafty spirit. 
He hates thee, and will grant thee nothing, unless he sees 
some great advantage therein ; the only way to make him 
give up the hostages would be to send some other person 
than thee." l 

Harold, brave and full of confidence, did not act upon 
this advice ; but setting out, as if on a journey of pleasure, 
he embarked at one of the ports of Sussex, and repaired 
to Rouen. Duke William received the Saxon chief with 
great honors, and an appearance of frankness and cordial- 
ity ; he told him that the two hostages were free at his 
mere request, and he might return with them immediately, 
but that, as a courteous guest, he ought not to be in such 
haste, but to stay at least for a few days, to see the 
towns and the amusements of the country. Harold went 
from town to town, and from castle to castle, and with 
his young companions took part in military jousts. Duke 
William made them chevaliers, that is, members of the 
high Norman military order, a sort of warlike fraternity, 
into which every man of wealth who devoted himself to 
arms might be introduced, under the auspices of some old 
member, who, with due ceremony, presented to him a 
sword, a baldrick plated with silver, and a lance decorated 
with a streamer. 2 The Saxon warriors received from 

1 Chronique et Normandie ; Recueil des hist, de la France, torn, xiii, p 223 ; 
Wace, Roman de Rou, torn, ii, p. 108. 

2 The institution of a superior class among those who devoted themselves 
to arms, and of a ceremonial, without which no one could be admitted into that 
military order, had been introduced into and propagated throughout all the west 
of Europe by the Germanic nations who had dismembered the Roman empire. 
This custom existed in Gaul ; and, in the Roman tongue of that country, a 
member of the high military class was called a cavalier or chevalier, because at 
that time, throughout Gaul and on the Continent in general, horsemen formed 
the principal strength of armies. It was otherwise in England : perfection in 
equestrian skill was not at all considered in the idea entertained in that island of 
an accomplished warrior. The two only elements of the English idea were youth 
and strength ; and the Saxon tongue gave the name of cniht, that is to say, young 
man, to the warrior who by the French, the Normans, the southern Gauls, and 
also the Germans, was designated horseman. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 219 

their sponsor in chivalry presents of fine arms and horses 
of great value. William then proposed that they should 
try their new spurs by following him in an expedition 
which he was undertaking against his neighbors of Brit- 
tany. 

Harold and his friends, foolishly eager to acquire a re- 
nown for courage among the men of Normandy, displayed 
for their host, at the expense of the Britons, a prowess 
which was one day to cost them and their country very 
dear. During the whole war, Harold and William had 
but one tent and one table. On their return they rode 
side by side, amusing each other on the way with friendly 
discourse. One day William turned the conversation 
upon his early intimacy with King Edward. " When Ed- 
ward and I," said he to the Saxon, " lived like brothers 
under the same roof, he promised that, if ever he became 
king of England, he would make me heir to his kingdom. 
Harold, I wish that thou wouldst assist me to realize this 
promise ; and be sure that if, by thy aid, I obtain the king- 
dom, whatever thou shait ask, I will grant it thee." 1 Har- 
old, though surprised at this unexpected excess of confi- 
dence, could not refrain from answering by some vague 
promises of adhesion thereto; and William resumed in 
these terms : " Since thou consentest to serve me, thou 
must engage to fortify the castle at Dover, to sink in it a 
well of fresh water, and to give it up to my troops ; thou 
must also give me thy sister, that I may marry her to one 
of my chiefs ; and thou thyself must marry my daughter 
Adela ; moreover, I wish thee, at thy departure, to leave 
me one of the hostages which thou claimest, as a surety 
for the fulfilment of thy promise ; he shall remain in my 
keeping, and I will restore him to thee in England when 
I shall arrive there as king." 2 On hearing these words, 
Harold perceived all his danger, and that into which he 
had unconsciously drawn his two young relatives. To 
escape from his embarrassment, he complied in words 
with all the Norman's demands ; and he who had twice 
taken up arms to drive away the foreigners from his coun- 
try promised to deliver up to a foreigner the principal 
fortress in that same country, reserving to himself to 
break this unworthy engagement at a future day, while 
purchasing his safety, for the moment, with a falsehood. 

1 Chron. de Normandie ; Recueil des hist, de la France, torn, xiii, p. 223. 

2 Eadmeri, Hist, nov., lib. i, p. 5. 



220 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

William pressed him no further at that moment; but he 
did not long leave the Saxon at peace on this point. 

In the town of Avranches, others say in that of Bayeux, 
Duke William convoked a great council of the lords and 
barons of Normandy. The day before that fixed for the 
assembly William had caused to be brought, from all the 
places around, bones and relics of saints, sufficient to fill 
a great chest or cask, which was placed in the hall of 
council and covered with cloth of gold. 1 When the duke 
had taken his seat in the chair of state, holding a drawn 
sword in his hand, crowned with a circlet of gems, and 
surrounded by the crowd of Norman chiefs, among whom 
was the Saxon, two small reliquaries were brought and 
laid upon the golden cloth which covered the cask of rel- 
ics. William then said, " Harold, I require thee, before 
this noble assembly, to confirm by oath the promises which 
thou hadst made me, that is, to assist me in obtaining the 
kingdom of England after King Edward's death, to marry 
my daughter Adela, and to send me thy sister, that I may 
give her to one of my followers." The Englishman, once 
more taken by surprise, and not daring to deny his own 
words, approached the two reliquaries with a troubled air, 
laid his hand upon them, and swore to execute to the ut- 
most of his power his agreement with the duke, if he 
lived, and with God's help. The whole assembly repeat- 
ed, " May God be thy help ! " 2 William immediately made 
a sign, on which the cloth of gold was removed, and dis- 
covered the bones and skeletons, which filled the cask to 
the brim, and which the son of Godwin had sworn upon 
without knowing it. The Norman historians say that he 
shuddered, and his countenance changed at the sight of 
this enormous heap. 3 Harold soon after departed, taking 
with him his nephew, but was compelled to leave his 
young brother behind him in the power of the Duke of 
Normandy. William accompanied him to the seaside, 
and made him fresh presents, rejoicing that he had by 
fraud and surprise obtained from the man in all England 
most capable of frustrating his projects a public and sol- 
emn oath to serve and assist him. When Harold, on his 
return to his native country, presented himself before 

1 Tut une cuve en fist emplir, 

Pois d'un paele les fist covrir, 

Ke Heraut ne sout ne ne vit. — Roman de Rou, torn, ii, p. 1 13. 
2 Ibid., torn, ii, p. 114. 
8 Chron. de Norm. ; Recueil des hist, de la France, torn, xiii, p. 223. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 2 2I 

King Edward, and related all that had passed between 
Duke William and himself, the king became pensive, and 
said to him : " Did I not forewarn thee that I knew this 
William, and that thy journey would bring calamity on 
thyself and on our nation ? Heaven grant that these mis- 
fortunes may not happen during my life ! "* These words 
and this sadness may seem to prove that Edward had 
really, in his youthful and thoughtless days, made a fool- 
ish promise to a foreigner of a kingdom which did not 
belong to him. It is not known whether, after his acces- 
sion, he had nourished the ambitious hopes of William by 
words ; but, in default of express words, his constant 
friendship for the Norman had, with the latter, been 
equivalent to a positive assurance, and a sufficient reason 
for believing that Edward continued favorable to his 
views and wishes. 

An oath sworn upon relics, whether forced or volun- 
tary, called down the vengeance of the church if violated ; 
and in such a case, in the opinion of all Christendom, the 
church struck legitimately. Therefore, whether from a 
secret presentiment of the perils with which England was 
threatened by the spirit of ecclesiastical revenge, com- 
bined with the ambition of the Normans, or from a vague 
impression of superstitious terror, a great dejection of 
mind overcame the English nation. Sinister reports were 
circulated ; men feared and were alarmed without any 
positive cause for alarm. They dug up old predictions, 
attributed to saints of former times. One of them had 
prophesied misfortunes such as the Saxons had never suf- 
fered since they left the banks of the Elbe. 2 Another had 
foretold an invasion by a people of an unknown tongue, 
and the subjection of the English people to masters from 
beyond the sea. All these rumors, hitherto unheeded or 
unknown, forged perhaps at that very moment, were 
eagerly received, and kept the minds of the people in ex- 
pectation of some great and unavoidable calamity. 

The health of Edward, who was naturally of a weak 
constitution, and had, it would appear, become aware of 
his country's danger, declined from the period of these 
events. He could not disguise from himself that his 

1 Nonne dixi tibi .... me Willelmum nosse ait ? — Eadmeri, Hist, nov., 
lib. i, p. 5, ed. Selden. 

2 Venient super gentem Anglorum mala, qualia non passa est ex quo venit 
in Angliam usque tempus illud. — Johan. de Fordun, Scotichronicon, lib. iv, cap. 



222 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

love of foreigners was the sole cause of the evils which 
seemed to threaten England ; and his gloom on this ac- 
count was greater than that of the people. In order to 
stifle these thoughts, and perhaps the remorse which 
preyed upon his mind, he gave himself wholly up to the 
details of religious observances ; he made large donations 
to the churches and monasteries ; and his last hour sur- 
prised him in the midst of these mournful and unprofita- 
ble occupations, A. D. 1066. 1 Lying on his couch, almost 
at the point of death, he was surrounded by Harold and 
his kindred, who prayed the king to name a successor by 
whom the kingdom might be governed securely. " Ye 
know," said Edward, " that I have left my kingdom to the 
Duke of Normandy ; and are there not here among ye, 
those who have sworn to assure his succession?" Harold 
advanced, and once more asked the king on whom the 
crown should devolve. " Take it, if it is thy wish, Han 
old," said Edward ; " but the gift will be thy ruin ; against 
the duke and his barons thy power will not suffice." Har, 
old declared that he feared neither the Norman nor any 
other foe. The king, vexed at this importunity, turned 
round in his bed, saying, " Let the English make king 
whom they will, Harold or another ; I consent ; " and 
shortly after expired. The very day after the celebration 
of his obsequies, Harold was proclaimed king by his par- 
tisans, amid no small public disquietude, and Eldred, 
Archbishop of York, lost no time in anointing him. 

The commencement of the new reign was marked by 
a complete return to the national usages that had been 
abandoned in the preceding reign. Harold did not, how- 
ever, drive from the kingdom, nor from their offices, the 
few Normans who were there in condescension toward 
Edward's old affections. These foreigners continued in 
the enjoyment of every civil right ; but, instead of being 
grateful for this generous treatment, they employed them- 
selves in intriguing at home and abroad for the foreign 
Duke of Normandy. From them it was that William re- 
ceived the message that informed him of Edward's death 
and of the election of the son of Godwin. 

Immediately after receiving this important intelligence 
the duke sent a messenger to Harold, who addressed him 
in these words : " William, Duke of the Normans, sends to 

1 About a century after his death the title of Confessor was conferred on 
him by Pope Alexander III, which had a similar meaning to that of Saint 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



223 



remind thee of the oath which thou hast sworn to him 
with thy mouth and with thy hand upon good and holy 
relics." " It is true," replied the Saxon king, "that I took 
an oath to William ; but I took it under constraint. I 
promised what did not belong to me ; a promise which I 
could not in any way perform. My royal authority is not 
my own ; I could not lay it down against the will of the 
country ; nor can I, against the will of the country, take 
a foreign wife. As for my sister, whom the duke claims, 
that he may marry her to one of his chiefs, she has died 
within the year." The Norman ambassador carried back 
this answer ; and William replied by a second message, with 
reproaches, but expressed in mild and moderate terms, and 
entreating the king, if he did not consent to fulfil all the 
conditions he had sworn, at least to perform one of them, 
and to receive in marriage the young princess whom he 
had promised to make his wife. Harold answered that 
he would not fulfil that obligation ; and, to give proof of 
this resolution, he married a Saxon woman. Upon this 
the final words declarative of rupture were pronounced. 
William swore that within the year he would come to ex- 
act all his due, and to pursue his perjured foe even to 
those places where he could hope to make the surest and 
the boldest stand against his vengeance. 

As far as publicity could go in the eleventh century, 
the Duke of Normandy published what he called the in- 
justice and bad faith of the Saxon, and the opinion of the 
mass of men on the Continent went for William against 
Harold. He also brought an accusation of sacrilege 
against his enemy before the pontifical court, and de- 
manded that England should be laid under interdict by 
the Church, and declared to be the property of him who 
should first take possession, with the reservation of the 
pope's approval. He assumed the character of a plaintiff 
at law, requiring that justice should be done to him, and 
desirous that his adversary should be heard in answer. 
But Harold, refusing to acknowledge himself amenable 
to that court, was in vain cited to defend himself before 
the tribunal of Rome. Consequently a judicial sentence 
was pronounced by the pope himself, 1 according to the 
terms of which William, Duke of Normandy, had permis- 
sion to enter England, and Harold and all his adherents 
were excommunicated by a papal bull, which was trans- 

1 Pope Alexander II. 



224 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

mitted to William by the hands of his envoy ; and to it 
was, moreover, added the gift of a banner from the apos- 
tolic church, and a ring containing one of St. Peter's 
hairs, encased beneath a diamond of some price. 

Before the bull, the banner, and the ring arrived in 
Normandy, contributions came from all parts for getting 
up the expedition ; one subscribed for vessels, another for 
well-appointed men-at-arms, and many promised to march 
in person. The priests gave their money, the merchants 
their stuffs, and the country people their provisions. But 
when the consecrated objects arrived from Rome, their 
sight excited double eagerness : every one brought what 
he could ; and mothers sent their sons to enlist for the 
salvation of their souls. William had his proclamation 
of war published in the neighboring countries, and offered 
good pay and the plunder of England to every able-bodied 
man who would serve him with spear, sword, or cross- 
bow. A multitude came, by all roads, from far and near, 
from the north and from the south. Some arrived from 
the province of Maine and from Anjou, from Poitou and 
from Brittany, from France and from Flanders, from 
Aquitaine and from Burgundy, from Piedmont and from 
the banks of the Rhine. All the adventurers by profes- 
sion, all the outcasts of Western Europe, came eagerly 
and by forced marches. Some were cavaliers or warlike 
chiefs, others were simply foot-soldiers and sergeant-at- 
arms, as they were then called. Some asked for pay in 
money ; others only for their passage and all the booty 
they could make ; many wished for land among the Eng- 
lish, a demesne, a castle, or a town ; while others would 
be content with some rich Saxon woman in marriage. 
Every wish, every project of human covetousness pre- 
sented itself. William rejected no one, says the Norman 
chronicle, but promised favors, duly registered, to every 
one according to his ability. 

The place of meeting for the vessels and the warriors 
was at the mouth of the Dive, a river that flows into the sea 
between the Seine and the Orne. For a month the winds 
were contrary, and kept the Norman fleet in port ; but at 
daybreak of the 27th of September, the sun, which until 
that morning had been obscured by clouds, arose in full 
splendor, while a fine easterly breeze blew from the shore. 
The camp was immediately broken up, every preparation 
for immediate embarkation was made with zeal and with 
no less alacrity, and a few hours before sunset the entire 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



225 



fleet weighed anchor. Four hundred ships with large 
masts and sails, and more than a thousand transport-boats 
manoeuvred to gain the open sea, amid the noise of 
clarions and the wild shout proceeding from sixty thou- 
sand warriors. Unfortunately for the English their ves- 
sels, which had so long been cruising off the coast of 
Sussex, had just before returned to harbor for want of 
provisions, so that William's troops landed, without en- 
countering any resistance, at Pevensey, near Hastings, on 
the 28th of September, 1066. The archers landed first, 
the cavaliers next, and after them the workmen of the 
army — pioneers, carpenters, and smiths — who unloaded 
on the shore, piece by piece, three wooden castles, framed 
and prepared beforehand. The duke came ashore last of 
all. In setting his foot upon the sands he made a false 
step, and fell upon his face. A murmur immediately 
arose ; and some voices cried, " God preserve us ! This is 
a bad sign ! " But William rising, exclaimed, " What is 
the matter with ye? What astonishes ye ? I have seized 
on this land with both my hands ; and, by the splendor of 
God, as much as there is of it, it is ours." * This quick 
repartee instantly prevented their being discouraged by so 
ill an omen. The army marched upon the town of Has- 
tings ; near that place an encampment was formed, and 
two of the wooden castles were erected and furnished 
with provisions. Bodies of soldiers overran all the neigh- 
boring country, plundering and burning houses. The 
English fled from their dwellings, concealed their furni- 
niture and cattle, and flocked to the churches and church- 
yards, which they thought the most secure asylum from 
enemies who were Christians like themselves. But the 
Normans made but little account of the sanctity of places, 
and respected no asylum. 

Harold was at York, when a messenger came in great 
haste to tell him that William of Normandy had landed 
and planted his standard on the Anglo-Saxon territory. 
He immediately marched toward the south with his army, 
publishing, as he passed along, an order to all his chiefs 
of counties to put all their fighting men under arms and 
lead them to London. One of those Normans who had 
been allowed to remain in England, and who now played 

1 Seignors, par la resplendor De, 
La terre ai as dous mainz seizie . . . 
Tote est nostre quant qu'il i a 

Roman de Rou, torn, ii, p. 152. 



226 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

the part of spies and secret agents of the invader, sent 
word to the duke to be on his guard, for that in four days 
the son of Godwin would have round him one hundred 
thousand men. Harold, too quick in his movements, did 
not wait four days. He could not master his eagerness 
for coming to an engagement with the foreigners, espe- 
cially when he learned the ravages of every description 
which they were committing round their camp. The 
hope of sparing his countrymen some misery, and per- 
haps the desire of making a sudden, an unexpected attack 
upon the Normans, determined him to march toward 
Hastings with forces only one quarter as numerous as 
those of the Duke of Normandy. 

But William's camp was carefully guarded against a 
surprise, and his posts extended to a considerable dis- 
tance. Detachments of cavalry gave notice, by their fall- 
ing back, of the approach of the Saxon king. Harold's 
design of assailing the enemy unawares being thus pre- 
vented, he was obliged to moderate his impetuosity. He 
halted at the distance of seven miles from the camp of the 
Normans, and, all at once changing his tactics, intrenched 
himself, in order to wait for them, behind ditches and 
palisades. 

On the ground which afterward bore, and still bears, 
the name of Battle, the Anglo-Saxon lines occupied a long 
chain of hills, fortified with a rampart of stakes and osier 
hurdles. In the night of the 13th of October, William 
announced to the Normans that the next day would be 
the day of battle. The priests and monks, who had fol- 
lowed the invading army in great numbers, being attract- 
ed, like the soldiers, by the hope of booty, assembled to- 
gether to offer up prayers and sing litanies, while the 
fighting men were preparing their arms. The soldiery 
employed the time which remained to them after this first 
care in confessing their sins and receiving the sacrament. 
In the other army the night was passed in quite a differ- 
ent manner ; the Saxons diverted themselves with great 
noise, singing their old national songs, and emptying 
aroutfd their watch-fires their horns of beer and wine. 

In the morning the bishop of Bayeux, brother, on the 
mother's side, of Duke William, celebrated mass in the 
Norman camp, and gave a blessing to the soldiers ; he 
was armed with a hauberk under his pontifical habit ; he 
then mounted a large white horse, took a baton of com- 
mand in his hand, and drew up the cavalry into line. The 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



227 



army was divided into three columns of attack : in the 
first were the soldiers from the county of Boulogne and 
from Ponthieu, with most of the adventurers who had 
engaged personally for pay; the second comprised the 
auxiliaries from Brittany, Maine, and Poitou ; William 
himself commanded the third, composed of the Norman 
chivalry. The duke mounted a Spanish charger; from 
his neck were suspended the most venerated of the relics 
on which Harold had sworn, and the standard conse- 
crated by the pope was carried at his side. At the mo- 
ment when the troops were about to advance, the duke, 
raising his voice, thus addressed them : 

" Remember to fight well, and put all to death ; for if 
we conquer we shall all be rich. What I gain, you will 
gain ; if I conquer, you will conquer ; if I take this land, 
you shall have it. Know, however, that I am not come 
"here only to obtain my right, but also to avenge our 
whole nation for the felonies, perjuries, and treacheries of 
these English. Come on, then, and let us, with God's 
help, chastise them for all these misdeeds." 1 

The army was soon within sight of the Saxon camp, 
near Senlac, to the northwest of Hastings. The priests 
and monks then retired to a neighboring height to pray 
and to witness the conflict. As soon as the archers came 
within bowshot they let fly their arrows, and the cross- 
bowmen their bolts ; but most of the shots were deadened 
by the high parapet of the Saxon redoubts. The in- 
fantry, armed with spears, and the cavalry, then advanced 
to the entrances of the redoubts, and endeavored to force 
them. The Anglo-Saxons, all on foot around their stand- 
ard planted in the ground, and forming behind their re- 
doubts one compact and solid mass, received the assail- 
ants with heavy blows of their battle-axes, which, with a 
back-stroke, broke their spears and clove their coats of 
mail. The Normans, unable either to penetrate the re- 
doubts or to tear up the palisades, and fatigued with their 
unsuccessful attack, fell back upon the division command- 
ed by William. The duke then commanded all his arch- 
ers again to advance, and ordered them not to shoot point- 
blank, but to discharge their arrows upward, so that they 
might fall beyond the rampart of the enemy's camp. 
Many of the English were wounded, chiefly in the face, 

1 Chron. de Normandie ; Recueil des Hist, de la France, torn, xiii, p. 232 ; 
Roman de Rou„ torn, ii, pp. 187-190. 



228 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

in consequence of this manoeuvre ; Harold himself lost an 
eye by an arrow, but he nevertheless continued to com- 
mand and to fight. The close attack of the foot and 
horse recommenced, to the cry of " Notre Dame ! Dieu 
aide ! Dieu aide ! " But the Normans were driven back 
at one entrance of the Saxon camp, as far as a great 
ravine covered with grass and brambles, in which, their 
horses stumbling, they fell pell-mell, and numbers of them 
perished. There was now a momentary panic in the army 
of the invaders : the report spread that the duke was 
killed, and at this news they began to flee. William 
threw himself before the fugitives and barred their pass- 
age, threatening them and striking them with his lance ; 
then uncovering his head, " Here I am," he exclaimed ; 
" look at me ; I live, and with God's help I will conquer." 

The horsemen returned to the redoubts ; but, as be- 
fore, they could neither force the entrance nor make a 
breach. The duke then bethought himself of a stratagem 
to draw the English out of their position, and make them 
quit their ranks. He ordered a thousand horse to ad- 
vance and immediately to take flight. At the sight of 
this feigned rout the Saxons were thrown off their guard ; 
and all set off in pursuit, with their axes suspended from 
their necks. At a certain distance, a body of troops, post- 
ed there for the purpose, fell on their flank ; the fugitives 
then turned round, and the English, surprised in the midst 
of their disorder, were assailed on all sides with spears 
and swords, which they could not ward off, both hands 
being occupied in wielding their heavy axes. When they 
had lost their ranks the gates of the redoubts were forced, 
and horse and foot entered together ; but the combat was 
still fierce, pell-mell, and hand to hand. William had his 
horse killed under him. King Harold and his two broth- 
ers fell dead at the foot of their standard, which was torn 
up and replaced by the banner sent from Rome. The re- 
mains of the English army, without a chief and without a 
standard, prolonged the struggle until the close of day, 
so that the combatants on each side could recognize one 
another only by their language. 

Having, says an ancient historian, rendered all which 
they owed to their country, the remnant of Harold's com- 
panions dispersed, and many died on the roads, in conse- 
quence of their wounds and the day's fatigue. The Nor- 
man horse pursued them without relaxation, and gave 
quarter to no one. They passed the night on the field of 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



229 



battle ; and on the morrow, at dawn of day, Duke Will- 
iam drew up his troops, and had the names of all the men 
who had followed him across the sea called over from the 
roll, which had been prepared before his departure from 
Normandy. Of these a vast number, dead and dying, lay 
beside the vanquished on the field. The fortunate sur- 
vivors had, as the first profits of the victory, the spoils of 
the dead. In turning over the bodies, the corpse of King 
Harold was found under a heap of slain, but so much dis- 
figured by wounds that it could hardly be recognized. 

These events are all related by the chroniclers of the 
Anglo-Saxon race in a tone of dejection which it is diffi- 
cult to transfuse. They call the day of battle a day of 
bitterness, a day stained with the blood of the brave. 
" England, what shall I say of thee ? " exclaims the his- 
torian of the church of Ely ; " what shall I say of thee to 
our descendants ? That thou hast lost thy national king, 
and hast fallen under the domination of foreigners ; that 
thy sons have perished miserably ; that thy councilors 
and thy chieftains are vanquished, slain, or disinherited." 
Long after the day of this fatal fight patriotic superstition 
still saw traces of fresh blood upon the ground where it 
had taken place ; they were visible, it was said, on the 
heights northwest of Hastings when a slight rain had 
moistened the soil. 

Immediately after his victory, William made a vow to 
build an abbey on the spot, dedicated to the Trinity and 
Saint Martin, the patron of the warriors of Gaul. The 
vow was soon accomplished, and the high altar of the new 
monastery was raised on the very spot where the stand- 
ard of King Harold had been planted and torn down. 
The outer walls were traced at once around the hill, 
which the bravest of the English had covered with their 
bodies, and the whole extent of the adjacent land, upon 
which the famous scenes of the battle had taken place, 
became the property of this abbey, which was called in 
the Norman language L Abbaye de la Bataille} 

The Norman army now advanced toward London by 
the great Roman way, called by the English Waethlinga- 
street, referred to in a former chapter as a common limit 
in the partitions of territory between the Saxons and the 

1 The Bayeux Tapestry, and Guy's Carmen de Bello Hastingensi, are espe- 
cially to be consulted by those who wish to study all the circumstances of the 
great battle. 



230 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



Danes. 1 Meanwhile, small bodies of troops were approach- 
ing- on several points, and traversing in various directions 
the counties of Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire, plunder- 
ing and burning the towns and hamlets, and butchering 
the men whether with arms or without. William did not 
go on to London, but stopped at the distance of a few 
miles, and there, having received the keys of the city, he 
sent forward a strong detachment of soldiers with instruc- 
tions to build a fortress for his residence in the center of 
the town. 

While this work was proceeding with rapidity, the 
Norman council of war were discussing in the camp near 
London the means of promptly completing the conquest 
so successfully begun. The familiar friends of William 
said that, in order to render the people of the yet uncon- 
quered provinces less disposed to resistance, the chief of 
the conquest must, previous to any ulterior invasion, take 
the title of King of the English. This proposal, which 
was, doubtless, the most agreeable to the Duke of Nor- 
mandy, met with the general approbation of his chiefs, 
and they unanimously resolved therefore, that, before the 
conquest was pushed any further, Duke William should 
cause himself to be crowned King of England by the small 
number of Saxons whom he had succeeded in terrifying 
or corrupting. 

Christmas-day, which was then approaching, was fixed 
on for the ceremony. The Archbishop of Canterbury, 
Stigand, was invited, to come and impose hands, and to 
crown him, according to the ancient custom, in the church 
of the Monastery of the West, in English West-mynster, 
nigh to London. Stigand refused to go and give his bene- 
diction to a man who was stained with blood, and the in- 
vader of the rights of another. But Eldred, Archbishop 
of York, with greater worldly discretion, seeing, say the 
old historians, that it was necessary to conform to the 
times, consented to perform the important ceremony ; and 
it was he who, accompanied by a few priests of both na- 
tions, and in presence of the counts, barons, and the chiefs 
of the army, to the number of two hundred and sixty, re- 
ceived, all trembling, from him whom they saluted king, 
the oath to treat the Anglo-Saxon people as well as they 
had been treated by the best of the kings whom they had 
elected in former times. 

1 See page 155. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



231 



On that very day the city of London had cause to know 
the value of such an oath from the mouth of a foreign con- 
queror. An enormous war-tribute was imposed on the 
citizens, and their hostages were imprisoned. Commis- 
sioners were sent through the whole extent of country in 
which the army had left garrisons. They made an exact 
inventory of all estates, public and private, registering 
them with great care and minuteness. Inquiry was made 
into the names of all the English who had died in battle, 
or who had survived their defeats, or whom their domes- 
tic affairs had, contrary to their desire, detained from 
joining the standards of their country. All the posses- 
sions of these three classes of men, whether in lands, or 
revenues, or chattels, were confiscated. The children of 
the first were declared disinherited forever. The second 
were likewise permanently dispossessed. Lastly, those 
men who had not taken part in the battle were also stripped 
of everything for having intended to fight ; but by special 
favor, after many years of obedience and devotion to the 
foreign power, not they, but their sons, might obtain from 
the bounty of the new masters some portion of the pater- 
nal inheritance. Such was the law of the Conquest, ac- 
cording to the credible testimony of a prelate who was 
nearly a contemporary, and who himself was descended 
from the Norman invaders. 1 

The immense produce of this universal spoliation served 
for rewards to the adventurers who had enlisted under 
the standard of the Norman duke. In the first place, 
their chief, the new king of the English, kept as his own 
share all the treasure of the ancient kings, the gold vessels 
and ornaments of the churches, and everything rare and 
precious that could be found in the shops. William sent 
a part of these riches to Pope Alexander, together with 
Harold's standard, in return for the holy standard which 
had triumphed at Hastings ; and all the churches abroad 
in which psalms had been sung and tapers burned for the 
success of the invasion, received in recompense crosses, 
chalices, and stuffs of gold. When the king and the priests 
had taken their share, the warriors had theirs, according 
to their rank and the conditions of their engagement. 
Those who, at the camp on the river Dive, had done 
homage to William for lands which were then to be con- 

1 Ricardus Nigellus, Richard Lenoir or Noirot, bishop of Ely in the twelfth 
century. 



232 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

quered, received those of the dispossessed English. The 
barons and knights had extensive domains, castles, town- 
lands, and even entire towns, allotted to them ; the meaner 
vassals had smaller portions. Some took their pay in 
money ; others who had stipulated beforehand for Saxon 
wives, received also strict attention ; and, according to the 
Norman chronicle, William caused them to take in mar- 
riage noble ladies, the heiresses of great possessions, whose 
husbands had been slain in battle. 

The man who had crossed the sea with the quilted cas- 
sock and black wooden bow of the foot-soldier now ap- 
peared, to the astonished eyes of the new recruits who 
had come after him, mounted on a war-horse and bearing 
the military baldrick. He who had arrived as a poor 
knight soon lifted his banner — as it was then expressed — 
and commanded a company, whose rallying-cry was his own 
name. The herdsmen of Normandy and the weavers of 
Flanders, with a little courage and good fortune, soon be- 
came in England men of consequence, illustrious barons ; 
and their names, ignoble and obscure on one shore of the 
strait, became noble and glorious on the other. The serv- 
ant of the Norman man-at-arms, his lance-bearer, his es- 
quire, became gentilhomme in England ; they were men 
of consequence and consideration when placed in com- 
parison with the Saxon, who had himself once enjoyed 
wealth and titles, but who was now oppressed by the 
sword of the invader, who was expelled from the home of 
his fathers, and had not where to lay his head. This natu- 
ral and general nobility of all the conquerors increased in 
the same ratio as the authority or personal importance 
of each. In the new nobility, after the style and kingly 
title of William, was classed the dignity of the governor 
of a province, as count or earl ; next to him that of his 
lieutenant, as vice-count or viscount ; and then the rank of 
the warriors, whether as barons, knights, esquires, or ser- 
ge ant s-at-arms, of unequal grades of nobility, but all re- 
puted noble, whether by right of their victory or by their 
foreign extraction. 

All the portion of territory occupied by William's gar- 
risons was in a short time crowded with citadels and for- 
tified castles. All the native population within it were 
disarmed, and compelled to swear obedience and fidelity 
to the new chief imposed on them by the lance and the 
sword. Such was the yoke the English race received, as 
the standard of the three lions progressively advanced 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



233 



over their fields, and was planted in their towns. Famine, 
like a faithful companion of the conquest, followed its foot- 
steps. From the year 1067 it had been desolating those 
provinces which alone had, up to that period, been con- 
quered ; but in 1070 it spread through the whole of Eng- 
land, and appeared in all its horror in the newly-conquered 
territories. The inhabitants of the province of York, and 
the country to the north of it, after feeding on the flesh 
of the dead horses which the Norman army had aban- 
doned on the roads, devoured human flesh. More than 
one hundred thousand people, of all ages, died of want in 
these countries. " It was a frightful spectacle," said an 
old annalist, " to see on the roads, in the public places, 
and at the doors of the houses, human bodies a prey to 
the worms; for there was no one left to throw a little 
earth over them." This distress of the conquered country 
was confined to the natives, for the foreign soldier lived 
there in plenty. For him there were in the fortresses vast 
heaps of corn and other provisions, and supplies were pur- 
chased for him abroad with gold taken from the English. 
Moreover, the famine assisted him in the complete subju- 
gation of the vanquished ; and often, for the remnants of 
the meal of one of the meanest followers of the army, the 
Saxon, once illustrious among his countrymen, but now 
wasted and depressed by hunger, would come and sell 
himself and all his family to perpetual slavery. Then was 
this shameful treaty inscribed on the blank pages of an 
old missal, where these monuments of the miseries of an- 
other age, in characters nearly effaced by the worm of 
time, are to be traced even at this day, and simply furnish 
a theme for the sagacity of antiquaries. 

The whole country of the Anglo-Saxons was now con- 
quered, from the Tweed to the Land's End, and from the 
sea of Gaul to the Severn (a. d. 1070) ; and the English pop- 
ulation was subdued in every part of the island, and over- 
awed by the presence of the army of their conquerors. 
There were no longer any free provinces, any masses of 
Englishmen united in arms or under military organization. 
A few separate bands, the remnants of the Saxon armies 
or garrisons, were to be met with here and there ; soldiers 
who were without leaders, or chiefs without followers. 
The war was continued only by the successive pursuit 
of these partisans ; the most considerable among them 
were solemnly judged and condemned ; the rest were 
placed at the discretion of the foreign soldiers, who made 
17 



234 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

them serfs on their acquired estates, or frequently sub- 
jected them to massacre, under such circumstances of bar- 
barity that an ancient historian, alluding to the same, re- 
fused to enter into details, these being either inconceivable 
or hazardous to relate. Such of the vanquished as had 
any means left for expatriating themselves repaired west- 
ward to the ports of Wales, or to those of Scotland, where 
they embarked, and went, as the old annals express it, to 
roam through foreign kingdoms, exhibiting their sorrows 
and miseries in a state of exile. Holland, Denmark, Nor- 
way, and the countries where the Teutonic dialects were 
spoken, were in general the destination of the emigrants. 
Some of the English fugitives, however, were seen to di- 
rect their course to the south of Europe, and crave an 
asylum among nations of entirely different origin and 
speaking a different language. 

From the time that the conquest began to prosper, 
not young soldiers and warlike chiefs alone, but whole 
families, men, women, and children, emigrated from every 
remote district of Gaul, to seek their fortunes in England. 
To the people on the other side of the Channel the island 
was like a newly-discovered land, to which colonists re- 
pair, and which is appropriated by the first or by every 
comer. The bishoprics and abbeys of England were em- 
ployed, as heretofore the wealth of the rich and the liber- 
ties of the poor had been, to pay off the debts of the con- 
quest. A crowd of adventurers came over from Gaul to 
pounce upon the prelacies, the abbacies, the archdeacon- 
ries, and deaneries of England, which, without any ob- 
stacle, were given to clerks from every other land. The 
prelate of foreign extraction then delivered, before a Sax- 
on auditory, his homilies in the French tongue ; and on 
their being attentively listened to, either in astonishment 
or from fear, the foreigner would assume pride on the 
unction of his persuasive discourses, which so miracu- 
lously charmed the ears of the barbarians. 1 The contempt 
which the clergy of the conquest professed for the natives 
of England was even greater than that of the soldiers, and 
all that had been anciently venerated in England was, by 
the new comers, looked upon as vile and despicable. 

But violence done to the popular conviction, whether 
true or false, rational or superstitious, is often more pow- 

1 Qui, licet latine rel gallice loquentem ilium minime intelligerent, tamen 
intendentes ad ilium, virtute verbi Dei .... ad lacrimas multoties compuncti. 
— Petri Blesensis Ingulfi, Continuat., apud rer. Anglic. Script. , vol. i, p. 115. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 235 

erful in stimulating the courage of the oppressed than the 
loss even of liberty and property. The insults lavished 
upon the subjects of ancient worship, and the sufferings 
of the Saxon clergy, together with some degree of fanati- 
cal hatred of the religious innovations of the conquest, 
strongly agitated the public mind, and became the motive 
causes of a great conspiracy, which extended over all Eng- 
land (a. d. 1 071). To arrest this danger, William adopted 
the same means which he had already, more than once, 
found to answer his expectation, namely, promises and 
lies. He invited, by messages, the chiefs of the insur- 
gents to his residence, where he received them with the 
utmost kindness, affecting toward them an air of mildness 
and good faith. A lengthened discussion was then held 
on their respective interests, which was terminated by an 
agreement. All the relics of the Church of St. Alban's 
had been brought to the place of conference. A missal 
was laid upon these relics, and opened at the gospel ; and 
William, placing himself in the situation in which he had 
himself so memorably placed Harold, swore by the sacred 
bones and the holy gospels to observe inviolably the good 
and ancient laws which the holy and pious kings of Eng- 
land, especially King Edward, had formerly established. 
The English, being well pleased with this concession, re- 
plied to William's oath by taking that oath of fidelity and 
peace which it had been the custom to take to the Saxon 
kings, and dispersed, satisfied and full of hope ; they then, 
quitting the royal presence, severally went their way, and 
broke up that great association which they had just 
formed for the deliverance of their country. 

These good and ancient laws, these laws of Edward, 
the renewed promise of observing which had the power 
of allaying the spirit of insurrection, were not a particular 
code, no settled system of written regulations ; but these 
words simply implied that mild and popular administra- 
tion of the laws and government which had existed in the 
time of the national kings. After the Danish dominion, 
the English people, in their request addressed to Edward, 
had asked for the laws of Ethelred, that is, for the abo- 
lition of the odious laws of conquest ; to ask under the 
Norman dominion for the laws of Edward, was only ex- 
pressing the same desire ; but it was a fruitless hope, and 
one which, in despite of his promises, the recent con- 
queror could not satisfy. In vain might he, in good faith, 
have restored every legal practice of the olden time ; if 



236 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

he had maintained, to the letter, this rule of practice 
through the medium of his foreign justices, the laws so 
observed would not have secured to the people the same 
benefits ; for it was not the non-observance of their an- 
cient laws which rendered the situation of the English 
people so disastrous, it was the ruin of their independence 
and their existence as a nation. Neither William nor his 
successors showed any great hatred for the Saxon legis- 
lation, whether criminal or civil ; they allowed it to be 
observed in many transactions, but this was not attended 
with any material advantage to the Saxons. They allowed 
the rate of fines for theft and murder committed upon an 
Englishman to vary, as before the conquest, according to 
the division of the great provinces. 1 They allowed the 
Saxon accused of murder or pillage to justify himself, ac- 
cording to the ancient custom, by the ordeal of red-hot 
iron or boiling water ; while a Frenchman, accused of the 
same crime by a Saxon, vindicated himself by duel, or 
simply by his oath, according to the law of Normandy. 
This difference of legal proceedings, evidently to the dis- 
advantage of the conquered population, did not disappear 
till after the lapse of a century and a half, when the decre- 
tals of the Roman church forbade judgments by fire and 
water in all countries. Moreover, among the old Saxon 
laws there were some which must have been especially 
favorable to the conquest, such as that which rendered 
the inhabitants of each district responsible for every of- 
fence committed within it, of which the offender remained 
undetected ; a law admirably convenient, in the hands of 
the foreigner, for creating and perpetuating terror. Such 

1 Thus, for instance, section viii of these laws says : 

Si home occit alter, et il seit conusaunt, e il deive faire les amendes, dur- 
rad de sa mainbote al seignor, pur le franc home x solz, et pur le serf xx solz. 
La were del thein xx livres en Merchenelae, e xxv livres en Westsaxenelae, e la 
were del vilain c solz en Merchejielae e ensement en Westsaxenelae. 

Translation into Modern French.— Si un homme en tue un autre, et 
qu'il reconnaisse le fait, et doive payer les amendes, il donnera pour sa mainbote 
au seigneur, pour l'homme libre dix sous et pour le serf vingt sous. La were 
du thain est de vingt livres dans la loi des Merciens et de vingt-cinq livres dans 
la loi de Westsex, et la were du vilain est de cent sous dans la loi des Merciens 
ainsi que dans la loi de Westsex. 

The mainbote or manbote was a bote, that is, "a penalty " or " compensa- 
tion " to the lord for any of his men killed. If a serf, the loss was considered 
greater than in case of a free man, on which he had only certain signorial rights, 
whereas the former was his personal property. Hence the difference in the 
rates of compensation. Were is an abbreviation of weregeld from wer y "a man," 
and geld, "money" ; in Latin, hominis pretium. Thein or thain is the Anglo- 
Saxon thane. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 237 

laws as these it was to the interest of the conqueror to 
maintain ; and as to those which related to transactions 
between individuals, the upholding of them was a matter 
of indifference to him. In this view, therefore, he per- 
formed the promise which he had made to the Saxon con- 
federates, without at all troubling himself as to whether 
they understood that promise in a different sense. He 
sent for twelve men out of each province, who came to 
him in London, and declared on oath what were the an- 
cient customs of the country. What they said was digest- 
ed into a sort of code, in the French idiom of that day, 
the only legal language recognized by the government of 
the conquest. The Norman heralds were then sent about, 
and proclaimed by sound of horn, in the towns and vil- 
lages, " The laws which King William granted to all the 
people of England, the same which King Edward, his 
cousin, had observed before him." 1 

The laws of Edward were published ; but the days of 
Edward did not return. The English burgess no longer 
enjoyed his municipal freedom, nor the countryman his 
territorial franchise ; thenceforward, as before, every 
Norman had the privilege of killing an Englishman, with- 
out being criminal, or even sinning in the eyes of the 
church, provided he thought him concerned in rebel- 
lion. On the contrary, by a peculiar application of the 
laws, the Englishman was, as it were, obliged to watch 
over the safety of the Norman, as will be seen from the 
following law, which had for its object the repression of 
assassination of members of the victorious nation. It was 
couched in these terms : " When a Frenchman is killed 
or discovered slain in any hundred? the inhabitants of the 
hundred shall seize and bring up the murderer within 
eight days ; otherwise they shall pay, at their common 
cost, a fine of forty-seven marks of silver." 3 

An Anglo-Norman writer of the twelfth century 4 

1 Ces sount les leis et les custumes que li reis William grentat a tut le puple 
de Engleterre apres le conquest de la terre. Ice les meismes que li reis Ed- 
ward sun cosin tint devant lui. — Leges Willheh?ii regis. See page 270. 

2 Shires, hundreds and tens of families are territorial divisions and local cir- 
cumscriptions, as old in England as the establishment of the Saxons and the 
Angles. The custom of counting the families as simple units, and aggregating 
them in tens and hundreds to form districts and cantons, was known to all na- 
tions of Teutonic origin. 

3 De murdre. — Ki Freceis occist, e les hommes del hundred ne l'prengent 
et amenent a la justise dedenz les oit jours pur mustrer pur qui il l'a fait, sin 
rendrunt le murdre xlvii mars. 

4 Dialog, de Scaccario, in notis ad Matth. Paris. 



238 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

makes the following exposition of the motive of this law: 
" In the early days of the new order of things which fol- 
lowed the conquest, such of the English as were suffered 
to live were continually laying ambushes for the Nor- 
mans, and murdering all whom they found alone in desert 
or solitary places. In revenge for these assassinations, 
King William and his barons inflicted on the subjugated 
the most refined punishments, the most exquisite tortures ; 
but these chastisements had scarcely any effect. It was 
then decreed that every district or hundred in which a 
Norman should be found dead, without any individual 
being suspected of committing the assassination, should 
nevertheless pay a heavy sum of money to the royal 
treasury. The salutary fear of this punishment, inflicted 
upon all the inhabitants in a body, must, it was considered, 
insure the safety of passengers, by inducing the men of 
the place to denounce and give up the guilty person, who 
alone, by his crime, occasioned an enormous loss to the 
whole neighborhood." The men of the hundred in which 
the Frenchman was found dead had no other means of 
escaping this pecuniary loss than that of destroying every 
outward mark that could prove the corpse to be that of a 
Frenchman ; for then the hundred was not responsible, 
and the Norman judges did not make their official in- 
quest. But the judges foresaw this artifice, and frus- 
trated it by a strange legal fiction or presumption. Any 
man found assassinated was considered French, unless the 
hundred judicially proved that he was of Saxon birth ; 
which proof must be given before the king's justice, on 
the oath of two men and two women, the nearest of kin 
to the deceased. Without these four witnesses, the fact 
of the deceased being an Englishman — his Anglaiserie or 
Englishry (as the Normans expressed it) — was not suffi- 
ciently established, and the hundred had to pay the fine. 
More than three centuries after the invasion, as the anti- 
quarians testify, this inquest was held in England on the 
body of every assassinated man ; and, in the legal lan- 
guage, it was still called presentment of Englishry} 

Such was the benefit the Anglo-Saxons derived from 
the concession which had appeared to them of so gratify- 
ing a nature. The vain expression, " the laws of King 
Edward," was all that thenceforward remained to this na- 

1 Presentement <T Angl&hene (see Blackstone). This law was not abro- 
gated until the year 1341, by a statute of Edward III. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 239 

tion of its ancient existence ; for the condition of every 
individual in it had been changed by the Norman con- 
quest. From the greatest to the least, every individual 
of the conquered people had sunk below his former con- 
dition. The chief had lost his power, the rich man his 
wealth, the free man his independence ; and he who, accord- 
ing to the hard custom of the time, had been born a slave 
in another's house, became the serf of a foreigner, and no 
longer obtained those little indulgences which the habit 
of living together, and the community of language, induced 
on the part of his old master. The English towns and 
villages were farmed out by the foreign counts and vis- 
counts to contractors, who made the most of them as pri- 
vate property, without exercising any administrative func- 
tions. The king speculated in like manner on the great 
cities and immense lands composing his domains. " He 
let his towns and manors," say the chronicles, " at the very 
highest price ; then, if some other contractor came and 
offered more, the farm was granted to him ; and if, after 
all, a third came and bade higher, it was definitively ad- 
judged to this last. He adjudged to the highest bidder, 
giving himself no concern about the enormous cruelties 
committed by his provosts in levying the poll-tax from 
the poor people. The king and his barons were ava- 
ricious to excess, and if they saw the slightest thing left 
to the poor, they would do anything to get possession 
of it." 

At the commencement of the year 1080, having reduced 
to a regular, if not a lawful, order the turbulent and vary- 
ing results of the conquest, William, anxious to settle the 
new state of things on a fixed and permanent basis, caused 
a great territorial inquest to be made, and a universal 
register to be prepared, of all the mutations of property 
effected in England by the conquest. He wished to know 
into what hands, through the whole extent of the country, 
the manors of the Saxons had passed ; and how many 
Saxons still kept their inheritances, by virtue of private 
treaties concluded with himself or with his barons; how 
many acres of land there were in each rural domain ; what 
number of acres sufficed for the maintenance of a man-at- 
arms, and how many men-at-arms there were in each 
county or shire of England; what was the gross amount 
of the products of the cities, towns, villages, and hamlets ; 
and what was the exact property of each earl, baron, 
knight, and sergeant-at-arms ; how much land each one 



240 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

had, how many tenants in fee, how many Saxons, oxen, 
and ploughs. 

By virtue of King- William's orders, a certain number 
of persons chosen from among the administrators of jus- 
tice and the keepers of the king's exchequer, went through 
all the counties of England, holding, in every place of any 
note or importance, their council of inquiry. They sum- 
moned before them the Norman viscount of each province, 
or Saxon shire, to whom the Saxons, in their own tongue, 
still applied the ancient title of shire-reve or sheriff. They 
called together, or ordered the viscount to call together, 
all the Norman barons of the province, who came and 
stated the precise limits of their possessions and territorial 
jurisdiction. Then some of the commissioners of this in- 
quest, or else certain deputies delegated by them, visited 
every extensive domain and every district or hundred as 
the Saxons termed it. Therein they everywhere made 
the French men-at-arms of each lord, and the Saxon in- 
habitants of each hundred, declare upon oath how many 
freeholders and how many farmers there were on each 
manor ; what portion each man held in perpetuity, on 
lease, or at will ; the names of the actual tenants, the 
names of those who had possessed the same before the 
conquest ; and the divers mutations of property which 
had occurred since the conquest ; so that, say the records 
of the time, three declarations were required as to each 
estate; viz., what it was in King Edward's time, what 
when King William made grant of it, and what at the 
time of the actual inquisition. Below each return this 
formula was inscribed : " Sworn to by all the French and 
all the English of the hundred." 

In each township it was inquired what imports the in- 
habitants had paid to the former kings, and what the town 
produced to the officers of the conqueror; it was also as- 
certained how many houses had been destroyed by the 
war of the conquest, and for building the fortresses ; how 
many the conquerors had taken themselves; and how 
many Saxon families, reduced to extreme indigence, were 
unable to pay anything. In the cities the oaths were ad- 
ministered by the high Norman authorities, who called 
together the Saxon citizens in their old council chamber, 
now become the property of the king or of some foreign 
baron. In places of less importance the oaths were taken 
from the royal prefect or provost, the priest, and six Sax- 
ons, or six villains of each township, as the Normans called 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



241 



them. This inquisition occupied six years, during which 
the great rent-roll, or, to use the old term, terrier of the 
Norman conquest was completed. This roll, digested for 
each province mentioned in it, was modelled on a uniform 
plan. The king's name was placed at the head, with a 
list of his domains and revenues in the county ; then fol- 
lowed the names of the chief and inferior proprietors, in 
the order of their military ranks and their territorial wealth. 
The Saxons who, by special favor, had been spared in the 
great spoliation, were found only in the lowest schedule ; 
for the small number of that race who still continued to 
be free proprietors or tenants-in-chief of the king, as the con- 
querors expressed it, were such only for slender domains ; 
they were inscribed at the end of each chapter under the 
name of " thanes of the king," or by some other designa- 
tions of domestic service in the royal household. The 
rest of the names of Anglo-Saxon form that are scattered 
here and there through the roll belong to farmers holding, 
by a precarious title, a few fractions, larger or smaller, of 
the domains of the Norman earls, barons, knights, sergeants, 
and bowmen. 

Such is the form of the authentic book, preserved to 
the present day, in which the whole of the conquest was 
registered, so that the remembrance of it might never be 
effaced. It was called by the Normans the Great Roll, 
the Royal Roll, or the Roll of Winchester, because it was 
kept in the treasury of Winchester cathedral. The Sax- 
ons called it by a more solemn name, Domesday-book, or 
book of the last judgment ; perhaps because it contained 
the irrevocable sentence of the alienation of their estates. 
Some of the dispossessed Saxons ventured to present 
themselves before the commissioners of the inquest, and 
laid before them their lawful claims ; a few obtained the 
insertion of their names in the register, with terms of hum- 
ble supplication which no Norman ever employed. These 
men declared that they were poor and wretched, and ap- 
pealed to the clemency and the mercy of the king. Those 
among them who, after much servile crouching, succeeded 
in preserving some slender portion of their patrimony, 
were obliged to pay for this favor by degrading and fan- 
tastic services, or received it under the no less humiliating 
title of alms. Sons are inscribed in the roll as holding the 
lands of their fathers as an alms. Free women keep their 
fields as an alms. Another woman is left in the enjoyment 
of the estate of her husband, on condition of her feeding 



242 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

the king's dogs. And a mother and a son receive their 
ancient inheritance as a gift, on condition of their offering 
up daily prayers for the soul of the king's son Richard. 

Many particular facts, relating to this period of Eng- 
lish history, have been minutely described in the brilliant 
narrative of Augustin Thierry, from which most of the 
preceding details have been borrowed, not as in them- 
selves worthy of any special notice, but for the purpose 
of assisting the reader to picture to his imagination the 
various scenes of the conquest, and to give to the facts of 
the greatest importance their genuine historical coloring. 
" Let the reader dwell upon them," says the author, " let 
him image old England once more peopled with the in- 
vaders and the vanquished of the eleventh century ; let 
him figure to himself the different positions of the actors 
in that mortal contest, their jarring interests, their diverse 
languages, the exultation and insolence of the former, the 
abject wretchedness and despair of the latter, and all the 
agitation and violence which are the necessary accom- 
paniments of a war of destruction between two great 
masses of mankind. It is by collecting in his mind all the 
facts of this nature, that the reader will be able to form a 
just idea of the condition of England immediately after 
the Norman conquest, and of its effect upon the country's 
language. 

In order to take a correct view of this new state of 
things he must figure to himself, not a mere change of 
political rule, not the triumph of a lucky competitor over 
one unable to hold his own, but the intrusion of a nation 
into the bosom of another people whom it had come to 
destroy, and whose scattered fragments it admitted into 
the new social system merely in the status of personal 
property, or, to use the language of ancient deeds and 
records, of " a clothing to the soil." 1 He must not picture 
to himself, on the one hand, William, the king and despot; 
on the other, simply his subjects, high and low, all inhab- 
iting England, and consequently all English ; he must bear 
in mind that there were two distinct nations, the old Anglo- 
Saxon race mixed up with Danes, and the Norman invad- 
ers, dwelling intermingled on the same soil ; or rather he 
might contemplate two countries, the one possessed by 
Normans, wealthy and exonerated from capitation and 
public burdens ; the other, that is the Saxon, enslaved and 

1 Vestura, fructus quilibet agro hserentes. — Ducange, Gloss, verbo vestura. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



243 



oppressed with heavy taxes ; the former full of spacious 
mansions of walled and moated castles ; the latter scat- 
tered over with thatched cabins and dilapidated hovels ; 
the one peopled with the happy and the idle, with soldiers 
and courtiers, with knights and nobles ; the other with 
men in misery and condemned to labor, with peasants and 
artisans. In the one, he beholds luxury and insolence ; 
in the other, poverty and envy ; not the envy of the poor 
at the sight of the opulence of those born to high station, 
but that malignant envy, though justice be on its side, 
which the despoiled can not but feel in looking upon the 
spoilers. Lastly, to complete the picture, these two lands 
are in some sort interwoven with each other ; they meet 
at every point, and yet they are more distant, more com- 
pletely separated, than if the ocean rolled between them. 
Each has its language, and speaks a language foreign to 
the other. French is the court language, used in all the 
palaces, castles and mansions, in the abbeys and monas- 
teries, in all places where wealth and power offer their 
attractions, while the ancient language of the country is 
heard only at the firesides of the poor and the serfs. For 
a long time these two idioms were propagated almost 
without intermixture, the one being the mark of noble, 
the other of ignoble birth." * 

Comparing the various conquests of which we read in 
the history of nations, and viewing them in their main 
features only, we may classify them under three different 
heads. Sometimes one population has been overwhelmed 
by or driven before another as it might have been by an 
inundation of the sea, or at the most a small number of 
the old inhabitants of the invaded territory have been 
permitted to remain on it as the bondsmen of their con- 
querors. This appears to have been the usual mode of 
proceeding of the barbarous races, as we call them, by 
which the greater part of Europe was occupied in early- 
times, in their contests with one another. The land was 
cleared by driving away all who could fly, and the uni- 
versal massacre of the rest. This primitive kind of in- 

1 Augustin Thierry. — More than two hundred years after the conquest, an 
English chronicler thus notices the difference of races in his time : 
. . . The folc of Normandie, 
Among us woneth yet, and schulleth ever mo. . . . 
Of the Normannes beth thys hey men, that beth of thys lond 
And the lowe men of Saxons. . . . 

Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle. 



244 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



vasion and conquest belonged properly to the night of 
barbarism, but in certain of the extreme parts of the Eu- 
ropean system something of it survived down to a com- 
paratively late date. Much of the manner in which Brit- 
ain was wrested from its previous Celtic occupants by 
the Angles and Saxons, in the fifth and sixth centuries of 
our era, would lead us to think that the enterprise of 
these invaders was both originally conceived • and con- 
ducted throughout in this spirit. Nay, for some centuries 
after this we have seen the Danes, in their descents and 
inroads upon all parts of the British territories, still acting 
in the same style. But, ever since the time of the settle- 
ment of the barbarous nations in the more central prov- 
inces of the old Roman empire, another kind of conquest 
had come into use among them. Corrupted and enfeebled 
as it was, the advanced civilization which they now en- 
countered seems to have touched them as with a spell, or 
rather, it could not but communicate to its assailants some- 
thing of its own spirit. A policy of mere destruction 
was evidently not the course to be adopted here. The 
value of the conquest lay mainly in preserving, as far as 
possible, both the stupendous material structures and the 
other works of art by which the soil was everywhere cov- 
ered and adorned, and the living intelligence and skill, of 
which all these wonders were the product. Hence the 
second kind of conquest, in which, for the first time, the 
conquerors were contented to share the conquered coun- 
try, usually, according to a strictly defined proportional 
division, with its previous occupants. But this system, 
too, was only transitory. It passed away with the par- 
ticular crisis which gave birth to it ; and then arose the 
third and last kind of conquest, in which there is no gen- 
eral occupation of the soil of the conquered country by 
the conquerors, but only its dominion is acquired by 
them. 

The first of the three kinds of conquest, then, has for 
its object and effect the complete displacement of the an- 
cient inhabitants. It is the kind which is proper to the 
contests of barbarians with barbarians. Under the sec- 
ond form of conquest the conquerors, recognizing a supe- 
riority to themselves in many other things, even in those 
whom their superior force or ferocity has subdued, feel 
that they will gain most by foregoing something of their 
right to the wholesale seizure and appropriation of the 
soil, and neither wholly destroying or expelling its ancient 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



245 



possessors, nor even reducing them to a state of slavery, 
but only treating them as a lower caste. This is the form 
proper and natural to the exceptional and rare case of the 
conquest of a civilized by a barbarous people. Finally, 
there is that kind of subjugation of one people or country 
by another which results simply in the overthrow of the 
independence of the former, and the substitution in it or 
over it of a foreign for a native government. This is gen- 
erally the only kind of conquest which attends upon the 
wars of civilized nations with one another. 

The Norman conquest of England seems to have been 
a mixture of the three forms here described. The age of 
both the first and the second kind of conquest was appar- 
ently over ; but circumstances over which William himself 
remained ultimately without control changed the original 
plan of annexation into a course of utter subjugation. 
The lack of faith in the man whom the English people 
had chosen as their king, and the violation of his sworn 
oath, had given William the immense advantage of hav- 
ing with him in his enterprise the approval and sanction 
of the Church ; nor were there probably wanting many 
Englishmen who held his claim to be fully as good in law 
and justice as that of his native competitor. On his very 
death-bed Edward had said to Harold and his kinsmen : 
" Ye know full well, my lords, that I have bequeathed my 
kingdom to the Duke of -Normandy, and are there not 
those here whose oaths have been given to secure his suc- 
cession " ? So William claimed the English crown as his 
by right ; he firmly asserted himself to be the true and 
lawful successor of Edward, a king whose title had been 
acknowledged by the English Witenagemot, the supreme 
council of the nation ; and in taking the style of Con- 
queror he probably meant nothing more, at first, than 
that he had made good his right by force, and, if need 
be, meant to maintain that right by force. 

But such was the magnitude of the enterprise, and 
such its first success, that whatever might have been the 
personal views of the Conqueror in reference to the mat- 
ter, he had at once to deal with two overwhelming results, 
which were exactly the same as would have been pro- 
duced by an absolute colonization. The first was the 
natural demand on the part of William's followers or 
fellow-soldiers for a share in the profits and advantages 
of their common enterprise, which would probably in any 
case have compelled him eventually to surrender his new 



246 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

subjects to spoliation ; the second was the equally natural 
restlessness of the latter under the foreign yoke that had 
been imposed upon them, by which they only the more 
strongly invited and facilitated the process of their gen- 
eral reduction to poverty and ruin. 

Still, whatever may have been the disorders attending 
the course of conquest during the first few years after the 
invasion, the Normans did not settle in England as the 
Saxons and the Danes had done before them. The power 
established by the former was not one of barbarism and 
destruction, but one of civilization, which, from the first 
moment of actual contact, communicated to what re- 
mained of native civilization something of new life. At 
the date of the conquest the country was undoubtedly, in 
regard to everything intellectual, in a very backward state. 
Ordericus Vitalis, almost a contemporary writer, and him- 
self a native of England, though educated abroad, de- 
scribes his countrymen generally as a rustic and almost 
illiterate people. The last epithet may be understood as 
chiefly intended to characterize the clergy, for the great 
body of the laity at this time were everywhere illiterate. 
Thus, soon after the conquest, the king took advantage 
of the general illiteracy of the native clergy to deprive 
great numbers of them of their benefices, and to supply 
their places with foreigners. His real or his only motive 
for making this substitution may possibly not have been 
that which he avowed ; but he would scarcely have alleged 
what was notoriously not the fact, even as a pretence. 

The Norman conquest introduced a new state of things 
in this as in most other respects. That event made Eng- 
land, as it were, a part of the Continent, where, not long 
before, a revival of letters had taken place scarcely less 
remarkable, if we take into consideration the circum- 
stances of the time, than the next great revolution of the 
same kind in the beginning of the fifteenth century. In 
France, indeed, the learning that had flourished in the 
time of Charlemagne had never undergone so great a de- 
cay as had befallen that of England since the days of 
Alfred. The schools planted by Alcuin, and the philoso- 
phy taught by Erigena, had both been perpetuated by a 
line of the disciples and followers of these distinguished 
masters, which had never been altogether interrupted. 
But in the tenth century this learning of the West had 
met and been intermixed with a new learning originally 
from the East, but obtained directly from the Arab con- 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



247 



querors of Spain. The Arabs had first become acquainted 
with the literature of Greece in the beginning of the 
eighth century, and it instantly exercised upon their 
minds an awakening influence of the same powerful kind 
as that with which it again kindled Europe seven cent- 
uries afterward. 

There is no trace of this new literature having found 
its way to England before the Norman conquest. But 
that revolution immediately brought it in its train. " The 
Conqueror himself patronized and loved letters. He filled 
the bishoprics and abbacies of England with the most 
learned of his countrymen, who had been educated at the 
University of Paris, at that time the most flourishing 
school in Europe. He placed Lanfranc, the celebrated 
abbot of the monastery of St. Stephen at Caen, in the see 
of Canterbury. Anselm, an acute metaphysician and theo- 
logian, his immediate successor in the same see, was called 
from the government of the abbey of Bee, in Normandy. 
Herman, a Norman, bishop of Salisbury, founded a noble 
library in the ancient cathedral of that see. Many of the 
Norman prelates, preferred in England by the Conqueror, 
were polite scholars. Godfrey, prior of St. Swithin's at 
Winchester, a native of Cambray, was an elegant Latin 
epigrammatist, and wrote with the cleverness and ease of 
Martial ; a circumstance which, by the way, shows that 
the literature of the monks at this period was of a more 
liberal cast than that which we commonly attribute to their 
character and profession. Geoffrey, also, another learned 
Norman, came over from the University of Paris, and es- 
tablished a school at Dunstable, where, according to Mat- 
thew Paris, he composed a play, called the ' Play of St. 
Catharine,' which was acted by his scholars, dressed char- 
acteristically in copes borrowed from the sacristy of the 
neighboring abbey of St. Albans, of which Geoffrey after- 
ward became abbot. 

" The king himself gave no small countenance to the 
clergy, in sending his son Henry Beauclerc to the abbey 
of Abingdon, where he was initiated in the sciences under 
the care of the abbot Grimbald, and Faritius, a physician 
of Oxford. Robert d'Oilly, constable of Oxford Castle, 
was ordered to pay for the board of the young prince in 
the convent, which the king himself frequently visited. 
Nor was William wanting in giving ample revenues to 
learning. He founded the magnificent abbeys of Battle 
and Selby, with other smaller convents. His nobles and 



248 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

their successors co-operated with this liberal spirit in 
erecting many monasteries. Herbert de Losinga, a monk 
of Normandy, bishop of Thetford in Norfolk, instituted 
and endowed with large possessions a Benedictine abbey 
at Norwich, consisting of sixty monks. To mention no 
more instances, such great institutions of persons dedi- 
cated to religious and literary leisure, while they diffused 
an air of civility, and softened the manners of the people 
in their respective circles, must have afforded powerful 
incentives to studious pursuits, and have consequently 
added no small degree of stability to the interests of 
learning." 1 

To this it may be added, that most of the successors 
of the Conqueror continued to show that regard for 
learning of which he had set the example. Nearly all of 
them had themselves received a learned education. Be- 
sides Henry Beauclerc, Henry II, whose father Geoffrey 
Plantagenet, Earl of Anjou, was famous for his literary 
acquirements, had been carefully educated under the su- 
perintendence of his uncle, the Earl of Gloucester ; and 
he appears to have taken care that his children should not 
want the advantages he had himself enjoyed ; for at least 
three of them — Henry, Geoffrey, and Richard — are noted 
for their literary as well as their other accomplishments. 

Few nations, in any period of history, have been more 
distinguished than the Normans by a taste for magnificent 
buildings. At the period of their establishment in Neus- 
tria, what is called the later Romanesque architecture had 
already taken its ultimate form and character ; and in this 
style, which they adopted and continued to practice for 
more than two hundred years, many examples remain to 
attest their proficiency as early as the tenth century. But 
in the early part of the eleventh century, which was to 
them a period of comparative peace and tranquillity, 
when they began to enjoy the benefits of permanent se- 
curity in their possessions, the Normans appear to have 
been seized with a mania for building splendid edifices of 
all kinds. Their nobility emulated each other in erect- 
ing churches and monasteries in their domains, and the 
period immediately preceding the descent upon England 
is distinguished by the erection of the most magnifi- 
cent buildings in this style now remaining in Normandy. 
The success of the Norman arms in England was imme- 

1 Preface to Warton's History of English Poetry. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 249 

diately followed by the general diffusion of Norman arts ; 
and when the land was parceled out among the Normans, 
much of it was at once appropriated to the endowment of 
Norman monasteries ; and when, afterward, the sees were 
filled with Norman monks and bishops, edifices rivaling 
those of their continental dominions speedily rose in every 
part of the country. Such was the activity and zeal with 
which the Normans exerted themselves in securing their 
acquisitions by the construction of fortified castles, and in 
displaying their piety by the foundation of monasteries 
and the erection and restoration of ecclesiastical buildings 
that, before the end of the eleventh century, not only were 
their strongholds scattered over all the kingdom to its 
most remote parts, but, in addition to the numerous re- 
ligious establishments originating from the munificence of 
the Normans, many of those already existing were re- 
founded, and the old buildings demolished for the pur- 
pose of restoring them on a more extensive scale. How- 
ever rapaciously the Normans may have possessed them- 
selves of the wealth of England, they certainly applied it 
with good taste, and, by a liberal expenditure, encouraged 
the arts and restored the forms of religion. " You might 
see," says William of Malmesbury, " churches rise in every 
village, and monasteries in the towns and cities, built in a 
style unknown before. You might behold the country 
flourishing with renovated sites, so that each wealthy 
man accounted that day lost to him which he neglected 
to signalize by some magnificent action." 

Whatever judgment, therefore, may be formed as to 
the comparative qualities of the two races, the Normans, 
at the time of their conquest of England, were undoubt- 
edly much further advanced than the Saxons in that sort 
of cultivation to which the name of civilization is common- 
ly applied. They introduced into the country not only a 
higher learning but improved modes of life. They set an 
example of elegance and magnificence, to which the Sax- 
ons were strangers, in their festivities, in their apparel, 
and in their whole expenditure. 1 Instead of wasting the 
whole of their wealth in eating and drinking, their pride 

1 Although the feasts of the Norman nobles were distinguished by the rar- 
ity and costliness of every thing relating thereto, their daily mode of living was 
exceedingly simple, as attested by their common proverb which gives not only 
the number of their meals, but also the hours at which they were eaten : 
Lever a cinque, diner a neuf, 
Souper a cinque, coucher a neuf, 
Fait vivre d'ans nonante neuf. 
lo 



250 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

was to devote the greater part of it to works of perma- 
nent utility or embellishment, to the building- of castles, 
churches, and monasteries. The art of architecture in 
England may be said to have taken its rise from them. 
By them also the agriculture of the country was im- 
proved, and its commerce extended. Under their gov- 
ernment, after it was fairly established, the kingdom for 
the first time had its natural strength and resources turned 
to account, and came to be recognized as of any impor- 
tance in the political system of Europe. 

These eventual benefits, however, were purchased at a 
heavy immediate cost. No national revolution brought 
about by violence can take place without occasioning 
much misery to individuals, and also giving a severe 
shock, for the moment, to the whole fabric of the public 
interests. But the Norman conquest of England, from 
the manner and circumstances in which it was effected, 
swept the land with an uprooting and destructive fury, 
far transcending that of ordinary tempests of this descrip- 
tion. It was much more than a mere transference of the 
dominion of the country into the hands of foreigners ; 
along with the dominion nearly the whole property of the 
country was torn from its former possessors, and seized 
by the conquerors. A handful of aliens not only wielded 
the powers of the government, and recast at will the whole 
system of the national institutions, but the Domesday-book 1 
is there to show how the natives were, for the most part, 
stripped of their estates as well as of their political rights, 
and driven forth to destitution and beggary. The dis- 
tinction of this conquest was, that it was to an almost un- 
exampled extent one of confiscation and plunder. It was 
not merely the establishment of a foreign prince upon the 
throne, but the surrender of the country to a swarm of 

1 To the Saxon mind the word Domesday seems to have conveyed the idea 
of " day of final judgment, final doom ; the day of irrevocable expropriation." 
But if this was its real meaning, the Latin for it would be dies judicii, whereas 
in all the old chronicles we find it styled liber judicialis \ or ccnsualis. The 
word is probably a corruption of Domus Dei, the name of the apartment in the 
king's treasury in Winchester Cathedral where the volumes were kept. The 
fact that Domesday is not a French word, but one of English invention, corrob- 
orates the supposition. Many words of foreign origin we find thus twisted and 
altered, until to the popular mind they convey some distinct meaning, which in 
this instance was certainly very expressive. It could not have come to the 
Norman mind, moreover, to apply an insulting English term to a document 
which to them was " the great Book of Record," the official register of real 
property, and which in their own language they called le Role de Winchester; le 
Rdle Royal; le Grand Role. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



251 



foreign robbers, who divided it among them like so much 
spoil, and, settling in all parts of it, treated the unhappy 
natives as mere thralls. The necessity of satisfying the 
claims of the troops of hungry and rapacious adventurers 
by whom he had been assisted in his enterprise, compelled 
the Conqueror thus extravagantly to overstretch and abuse 
even the hateful rights of conquest ; and the system thus 
entered upon could only be maintained by a perseverance 
in the sternest and most grinding tyranny. It was impos- 
sible that the moderation with which William at first 
affected to treat the conquered people should be long 
kept up. His spoliations and incessant exactions could 
not fail to provoke a spirit of resistance, which was only 
to be reined in by the steadiest and most determined 
hand. After some time, accordingly, he seems to have 
thrown away all scruples, and, resigning himself to the 
necessities of his position and the current events, to have 
relinquished every view of governing his English sub- 
jects by any other means than force and terror. The con- 
sequence was the establishment of a system of govern- 
ment which, as regards the great body of the people, was 
certainly as iron a despotism as ever existed in any coun- 
try calling itself civilized. 



252 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



CHAPTER VII. 

GROWTH AND DECLINE OF THE NORMAN FRENCH IN 
ENGLAND. 

" In no country/' says Macaulay, " has the enmity of 
race been carried further than in England. In no country 
has that enmity been more completely effaced. The stages 
of the process by which the hostile elements were melted 
into a homogeneous mass are not accurately known to us ; 
but it is certain that when John became king, in 1199, the 
distinction between Saxons and Normans was strongly 
marked, and that before the end of the reign of his grand- 
son, in 1307, it had almost disappeared. In the time of 
Richard I, the ordinary imprecation of a Norman gentle- 
man was : ' May I become an Englishman ? ' His ordinary 
form of indignant denial was : ' Do you take me for an 
Englishman ? ' The descendant of such a man, a hundred 
years later, was proud of the English name." 

To understand this change, as well as many others we 
are about to notice, what is most necessary to bear in 
mind is the Norman power of adaptation to circumstances, 
the gift which in the end obliterated the race as a separate 
one in England as well as elsewhere, and merged it in the 
nation among whom they were living, first as a ruling 
power, and in course of time as equals. English history 
would be greatly misconceived if it were thought that an 
acknowledged distinction between Normans and English 
went on into the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, perhaps 
into the seventeenth. Long before the earliest of these 
dates the Norman in England had done his work, rudely 
and roughly, perhaps, but not the less calculated to pre- 
serve and strengthen the national life of the people, and 
that work done, he gradually lost himself in the greater 
mass of people who henceforth were to form a great and 
powerful nation. 

Thus, although it was rather as a matter of policy that 
the Anglo-Normans adopted the name of " English " under 
Edward I during the war against Philip IV of France, 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 253 

who had formed an alliance with the Scottish King Bal- 
liol, it was not the less a sort of concession to the native 
English element which they wished to propitiate. Still 
the distinction of race remained well marked by the dif- 
ference of language. Robert of Gloucester, who wrote 
about the year 1300, distinctly states so in the following 
remarks : 

" 3 pe Normans ne coupe speke po, bote hor owe speche, 

•j speke French as hii dude at om 3 hor children dude also teche. 

So pat heiemen of pis lond, pat of hor blod come, 

Holdep alle pulke speche that hii of horn noma. 

Vor bote a man conne Frenss, me telp of him lute, 

Ac lowe men holdep to Engliss 3 to hor owe speche jute. 

Ich wene per ne bep in al pe world contreyes none, 

pat ne holdep to hor owe speche bote Englond one. 

Ac wel me wot uor to conne bope well it is, 

Vor pe more pat a man can, the more worpe he is." ! 

Robert Holcot, writing in the early part of the fourteenth 
century, informs us that there was then no instruction of 
children in the old English, that the first language they 
learned was the French, and that through that tongue 
they were afterward taught Latin ; and he adds that this 
was a practice which had been introduced at the conquest, 
and which had continued ever since. 2 About the middle 
of the same century, Ranulf Hygden, in his Polychronicon, 
says, as the passage is translated by Trevisa, " This apay- 
ringe [impairing] of the birthe tonge is by cause of tweye 
thinges ; oon is for children in scole, aghenes [against] the 
usage and maner of alle other naciouns, beth [be] com- 
pelled for to leve her [their] owrie langage, and for to con- 
strewe her lessouns and her thingis a Frensche, and haveth 
siththe [have since] that the Normans come first into Eng- 
land. Also gentil mennes children beth ytaught [be 
taught] for to speke Frensche from the time that thei beth 
rokked in her cradel, and cunneth [can] speke and playe 

1 " And the Normans could not then speak any speech but their own ; and 
they spoke French as they did at home, and had their children taught the same. 
So that the high men of this land, that came of their blood, all retain the same 
speech which they brought from their home. For unless a man know French, 
people regard him little ; but the low men hold to English, and to their own 
speech still. I ween there be no countries in all the world that do not hold to 
their own speech, except England only. But undoubtedly it is well to know 
both ; for the more a man knows, the more worth he is." — Robert of Glouces- 
ter's Chronicle. 

2 Led. in Labr. Sapient. Lect, ii, 4to, Paris, 15 18 ; as referred to by War- 
ton, Hist. Eng. Poetry \ i, 5. 



254 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

with a childes brooche ; and uplondish [rustic] men wol 
likne hem self [will liken themselves] to gentilmen, and 
fondeth [are fond] with grete bisynesse for to speke 
Frensche, for to be the more ytold of." The teachers in 
the schools, in fact, were generally, if not universally, ec- 
clesiastics ; and the conquest had Normanized the church 
quite as much as the state. Immediately after that revo- 
lution great numbers of foreigners were brought over, 
both to serve in the parochial cures and to fill the monas- 
teries that now began to multiply so rapidly. These 
churchmen must have been in constant intercourse with 
the people of all classes in various capacities, not only as 
teachers of youth, but as the instructors of their parishion- 
ers from the altar, and as holding daily and hourly inter- 
course with them in all the relations that subsist between 
pastor and flock. They probably in this way diffused their 
own tongue throughout the land of their adoption to a 
greater extent than is commonly suspected. We shall 
have occasion, as we proceed, to mention some facts which 
would seem to imply that in the twelfth century the French 
language was very generally familiar to the middle classes 
in England, at least in the great towns. It was at any rate 
the only language spoken for many generations after the 
conquest by the English kings, and not only by nearly all 
the nobility, but by a large proportion even of the inferior 
landed proprietors, most of whom also were of Norman 
birth or descent. 

Thus, while the native speech of England was neces- 
sarily disintegrating for want of further culture, and in 
the mouth of the poor and the lowly had become so di- 
versified in form and in utterance as to be hardly under- 
stood from one district to another, the language of the 
Normans, representing all the wealth, power, -and higher 
intellect of the kingdom, was cultivated ever more with 
the increasing fortunes of those with whom it was ver- 
nacular, and who, though much inferior in numbers, were 
not the less the masters and rulers of the country. " First 
there were the descendants of the military forces by which 
the conquest was achieved and maintained. Then there 
was the vast body of churchmen spread over the land, 
and occupying every ecclesiastical office in it from the 
primary down to that of the humblest parish or chapel 
priests, besides half filling, probably, all the monastic es- 
tablishments. There were all the officers of state, and in- 
ferior civil functionaries down to nearly the lowest grade. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



255 



Finally there were, with few exceptions, all the landhold- 
ers, great and small, throughout the kingdom," all speak- 
ing French, and holding to it as a mark of distinction. It 
was certainly not among these people that the changes 
originated which were to transform the native speech of 
England. Their contempt for the conquered race evi- 
dently extended also to their language, and if #iey under- 
stood it at all, it is not likely that they would have used it 
at first among themselves, except in derision, perhaps, or 
from necessity in reference to matters and things essen- 
tially Saxon. That, in some remote districts, there may 
have been Normans who, even at an early period, became 
conversant with the local dialect of the people among 
whom they resided is quite probable ; but that the great 
mass of the Normans knew little or nothing of the lan- 
guage for many generations is far more certain ; and be- 
tween the former and the latter there probably existed the 
same degrees of difference as in later times there was be- 
tween the natives who spoke French well and those who 
were utterly ignorant of it. 

Leaving out such of the wealthier among the Saxons 
as in Edward's time had already become acquainted with 
French, as the language of the court and fashion, it was 
probably among the working classes first, that foreign 
words and phrases found their way as a necessary means 
of intercourse with their Norman employers. Accustomed 
to labor and hardships, they were more easily reconciled 
to a state of things which at least had the advantage of 
giving work to those who were able and willing. The 
numerous castles, churches, and monasteries, with which 
the Normans covered the country on a scale of unexam- 
pled magnificence, called forth the services of a multitude 
of laborers and skilled mechanics, and no doubt many of 
the more intelligent contrived at once to learn something 
of the language of those of whom they sought to obtain 
employment. To shopkeepers, and all such as depended 
on Norman custom, some knowledge of French was, of 
course, indispensable ; and though accent may have been 
broad at first, and grammar poorly applied, they must 
have managed to make themselves understood, as indeed 
it was their interest to do, in order to secure success in 
business. In course of time there may have been even 
considerable progress made in this respect among this 
class of people, especially among such as had been at 
school where French was then the only medium of in- 



256 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

struction. Thus, in course of time, we see even native 
poets composing their verses in French when they wrote 
tor honor or profit ; and there is good reason to believe 
that by the end of the twelfth century many natives spoke 
French as well as English, and that, in the larger towns at 
least, all except the lowest were well conversant with all 
French terms relating to matters of general interest or 
bearing on the details of their business. 

But this familiarity with foreign terms for which there 
were, perhaps, no equivalents in the native tongue, and 
the constant use thereof in their intercourse with their 
employers or customers, introduced a habit among the 
English people of mixing up both elements in a manner 
which proved fatal not only to the native Saxon but event- 
ually, also, to the foreign French. Whoever has resided 
for any length of time abroad, even without becoming 
very conversant with the foreign language, unconsciously 
uses many foreign terms to designate objects of daily use 
and local geographical names, which, introduced either 
from necessity or affectation, or, perhaps, even in derision, 
impart to his language something quaint which, without 
absolutely corrupting it, is at once noticed by those who, 
remaining at home, speak their language without any such 
adulterations. A longer residence among foreigners, and 
more intimate relations with them, are apt to leave much 
deeper traces, not only in the vocabulary, but also in the 
phraseology and pronunciation of those who have become 
familiar with other sounds and other forms of language. 
The Normans, placed in like position, could not escape 
like influences resulting from their contact with the Eng- 
lish, and we may even believe that the first germs of cor- 
ruption of Norman French in England originated among 
those Frenchmen who remained in England during the 
reign of Edward as naturalized English subjects. 1 

The invading army of William, sixty thousand strong, 
was at first composed of men from all parts of France and 
the neighboring countries ; but as recruits were afterward 
more especially raised in Normandy, it soon followed 
that the greater part of the French population in England 
was of Norman descent. The wonderful success of these 
people, their boundless wealth, and, above all, that love of 

1 That their number was considerable, appears from a passage in the Laws 
of William. " Omnis Francigena qui tempore Eadwardi propinqui nostri fuit 
in Anglia particeps consuetudinem Anglorum, quod ipsi dicunt an hlote et an 
scote persolvat secundum legem Anglorum." 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



257 



glory, which made every Norman mind restless till it had 
acquired personal advancement and personal distinction, 
drew from France the most eminent poets and minstrels 
to celebrate their brilliant achievements at home and 
abroad. Thus revived among them their ancient taste 
for letters, for a time interrupted by their military pre- 
occupations ; and the French language, which had re- 
ceived its earliest development among the Normans of 
Gaul, continued to be cultivated in England with an ardor 
and perseverance which caused the Anglo-Norman com- 
positions, at one time, to take the lead in French literature, 
and gave the language a uniformity ' which, even long after 
its decline, remained superior to that of France itself. 

This decline, which commenced in the spoken lan- 
guage, was first observable in the foreign accent which 
the sons of the Normans contracted by dint of hearing 
English spoken around them, or by themselves speaking 
the Anglo-French jargon, which served as a medium of 
communication with those of the lower classes. In the 
king's palace and the mansions of the higher nobles, of 
course, no other language but French was heard, and at 
first this was probably the case with all Normans through- 
out the country, who for a time distrusted the presence of 
English servants around them. But this jealousy died out 
gradually ; many Normans had English wives, and the 
latter's influence must have evidently introduced some of 
their countrymen and women who, reconciled to the ex- 
isting state of things, were anxious to obtain good situa- 
tions with Norman families. This must have been the 
case especially in country residences, where the Norman 
population was more disseminated ; and there is no doubt 
that after some two or three generations many a bright 
Norman boy, with what he had learned from his mother, 
and what he had picked up in the nursery and in the 
stable, spoke English as well as French, in spite of pater- 
nal authority and prejudice. This was undoubtedly the 
first step toward the decline that followed. Laying, as in 
English, the stress on the first part of the word, its imme- 
diate consequence was the contraction of words and the 
omission of certain vowel sounds which in French are 
pronounced. From the year 1250 this corruption begins 

1 Ubi nempe mirandum videtur quomodo nativa propria Anglorum lingua 
pronunciatione ipsa fit tarn diversa, cum tamen Normannica lingua, quse adven- 
ticia est, univoca maneat penes cunctos. — Hygden, Polychron. ap. rer. Anglic 
Script., p. 210. 



258 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



to affect Anglo-Norman orthography very visibly, and be- 
comes more and more frequent as we approach the four- 
teenth century, when instances like the following con- 
stantly occur, even in public acts and official documents. 1 
Thus we find — 



captaine for 
government " 
sovereyne " 
rendez-vos " 
vole-vos 
tresorer 
officer 
manere 
memorie " 
adversarie " 



capitame 

gouvernement 

souverain 

rendez-vous 

voules-vous 

tresorier 

officier 

maniere 

memoire 

adversaire 



traveller 

perilouse 

counsel 

montaine 

companie 

compainun 

people 

suthdites 

se pleynent 



foi 



travailler 

perilleux 

conseil 

montagne 

compagnie 

compagnon 

peuple 

susdites 

se plaignent, 2 



and many others. 

But the contact of the Anglo-Norman with the native 
English had for result not only the modification of its pro- 
nunciation, but also another far more important one, which 
directly led to the fusion of the two languages — the in- 
troduction of English words. 

In the very laws of William we find many words be- 
longing to the old language of England. Such are — 

Law I. ham/are. A violation of home protection by forcible 
entry into a man's house. 

Law III. sac. The jurisdiction of the smaller courts. 

Ibid. soc. Privilege granted by the king to a minister of justice. 

Ibid. tern. A vouching to warranty. 

Ibid, infangenethef. The right of the lord of a manor to appre- 
hend and judge thieves taken within his jurisdiction, 
and to receive mulcts or money payments for their 
crimes. 

Law V. hengwite. A fine for letting an offender escape from 
prison. 

Law VIII. manbote. A compensation to the lord for slaying 
one of his men. 

Ibid. were. A fine for slaying a man. 

Law XII. sarbote. A fine for wounding a man, etc. 

But we should not be surprised, for at the head of 
these laws we read : " These are the laws which King 

1 Statutes at Large ; Bentley, Exeerpta historica ; Rymer, Foedera, Uteres et 
acta publica, etc. 

2 We here give the modern French orthography and not that of the thir- 
teenth century, it being our object to show, not the difference of spelling, but 
the contraction of words and the omission of certain vowel sounds or English 
pronunciation of the words in the column opposite. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



259 



William granted to all the people of England, the same 
which King Edward, his cousin, has observed before him." 
Being thus mainly a translation of the laws of Edward, 
and more particularly intended for his Saxon subjects, it 
is evident that these words, on account of their special 
meaning, were maintained from necessity ; perhaps for the 
sake of popularity. However, as motives of this kind 
rarely occurred for the first two centuries after the con- 
quest, we can not expect to find many such adulterations 
in the language of the proud and haughty Normans, until 
their interests, drawing them nearer to the people, urged 
them also to make use of their language, and thus it hap- 
pens that only at the commencement of the fourteenth 
century we begin to meet with certain English words 
which, at first used only occasionally, become very nu- 
merous as we advance in the fifteenth century. 

Perusing, for instance, the " Statutes at Large," we 
there find : 

A. D. 1327. Swainmote name given to a court, the jurisdiction of 
which was to inquire into the oppression and 
grievances committed by the officers of the forest. 

A. d. 1350. Catchpole, a bailiff's assistant. 

a. d. 1363. Villes de Upland . . . husbondrie . . . 

In such cases, the word introduced is generally pre- 
ceded by appelle, appelles, appelez, nommez, vulgarement 
nommez, or other similar expressions ; while many French 
words, and especially those adopted in English, already 
assume a form of orthography which indicates a perfect 
familiarity with English pronunciation. 

Continuing these statutes, we read : 

A. D. 1388. Ascuns rets, appelez stalkers. 

a. d. 1397. Le nouvelle keye, autrement appele le wharf. 

A. D. 1420. Geines, appelles shethes (sheaths). 

a. d. 142 1. Certains arbres, appelez poplers et wyllughes. 

a. d. 1429. Les regratours du file, appelez yernchoppers. 

a. d. 146 1. La venelle, appelle communement Seint-Martyris 
lane. 

a. d. 1463. Notre dit soverain, seignur le Roi, ad ordeigne qe 
null merchant amesne, maunde, ne convoie ascuns 
de cestes wares desoutz escrites : laces, ribans, 
frenges de soie . . . aundirons, gridirnes, marteus, 
vulgarement nommez hamers, pinsons, jire-tonges, 
drepyngpannes . . . corkes, daggers, wodeknyves, bot- 
kyns, sheres pour taillours . . . rasours, shethes . . . 
agules pour sacs, vulgarement nommez i>aknedles 



2 6o ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

. . . chauffyng-dishes, ladels, scomers . . . hattes . . . 
brusshes . . . blanc file de fer, vulgarement nome 
whitewire, etc. 
A. D, 1468. Diverses draps lanutz (laineux) appelez brode set 
clothes, streit set clothes, etc. 

Sometimes both words, French and English, stand side 
by side with each other, and with or without the conjunc- 
tion ou : 

A. d. 1400. Port, havene ou crike. 

a. d. 1439. Les tonnels, pipes, tercians et hoggeshedes de vin. 

A. d. 1442. Wharves et keyes. 

a. D. 146 1. Fraternite, gilde y compaignie ou felesheppe (fellow- 
ship). 

A. d. 1465. Signe ou token. 

a. d. 1472. Destruction del vivere, livelode (livelyhood), etc. 

And as we advance in the fifteenth century we find 
French and English almost indiscriminately used togeth- 
er, as : 

a. D. 1423. Carpenters, tilers, thakkers (thatchers). 

a. d. 1427. Commission de sewers. 

a. d. 1463. Divers chaffres et wares. 

A. d. 1468. Grande escarcite de bowe staves. 

a. d. 1472. Fishgarthez, milledammes, molyns, lohhes, flodegatez 

et diversez autres distourbancez. 

A. D. 1482. Vadletz et husbondmen, etc. 

More than a century before this, in 1362, the thirty- 
sixth year of the reign of Edward III, a statute had been 
passed ordaining that all pleas pleaded in the king's 
courts should be pleaded in the English language, and 
entered and enrolled in Latin ; the pleadings and oral 
arguments till then having been in French, and the en- 
rollments of the judgments either in French or in Latin. 
The great and constant increase of commerce during 
the reign of this king, and the legal proceedings result- 
ing therefrom, rendered it necessary to allow the use 
of English in pleadings before the civil courts, so that 
the parties, if not sufficiently conversant with French, 
should not remain unacquainted with the discussions. It 
was another concession, such as the English kings were 
in the habit of making to the native population, when in 
time of war they wanted their active co-operation in men 
and money ; and the inveterate enmity which had sprung 
up between France and England may have had a good 
deal to do with the liberal disposition which animated the 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 26 1 

king toward his English subjects on that occasion. Still, 
while English was thus acknowledged to be the real na- 
tional language, all official documents continued to be 
drawn up in French, as before ; and the statutes, which 
in the year 1275 were passed in French, with only oc- 
casionally one in Latin, were almost exclusively drawn up 
in French during the entire reigns of Edward III and 
Richard II; 1 the letters and dispatches of these kings 
were always written in French, as we find them pre- 
served by Robert of Avesbury ; and even in the latter 
part of Edward's reign, Oxford scholars were confined in 
conversation to either French or Latin. 2 

The first great cause of the decline of Norman-French 
in England, and especially of French poetry, was the total 
separation of that country from Normandy by the con- 
quest of Philip Augustus, A. D. 1204. The emigration of 
literary men, and poets of the language of ouif to the 
court of the Anglo-Norman kings, became, from the time 
of that event, less easy and less frequent. Being no longer 
supported by the example and imitation of those who 
came from the Continent to show them the new modes 
of fine speaking, the Norman poets remaining in England 
lost, in the course of the thirteenth century, much of their 
former grace and facility of composition. The nobles 
and the courtiers being very fond of poetry, but disdain- 
ing to write verses or compose books, 4 the troubadours, 
who sang for the court and the castles, could find pupils 
only among the trading classes or the inferior clergy, 
who, being of English origin, spoke English in their ha- 
bitual conversation. The effort which these men had to 
make, in order to express their ideas and feelings in a lan- 
guage which was not that of their infancy, detracted from 
the perfction of their works, and at the same time ren- 
dered them less numerous. At the end of the thirteenth 
century most of those who, in the towns or in the cloisters, 
felt a taste and a talent for literature, endeavored to treat 
in English most of the historical or imaginative subjects 
which had hitherto been treated only in pure Norman. 

1 Tracts on the Law and History of England (18 10), p. 393. D' Archery's 
French text may also be read in a more common book, Johnson's History of 
Magna Charta, 2d ed. (1772), pp. 182-234. 

3 Si qua inter se proferant, colloquio Latino saltern Gallico perfruantur. — 
Statutes of Oriel College. Oxford. 

3 See page 493. 

4 To this Richard I was an exception, as he spoke and wrote equally well 
the two languages of Gaul — the Langue d' Oil and the Langue d'Oc. 



262 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

A great many attempts of this kind made their ap- 
pearance all at once toward the middle of the fourteenth 
century. Some of the poets of that period, and such as 
were most in favor with the higher classes of society, still 
wrote verses in French ; others, contenting themselves 
with the approbation of the middle classes, composed for 
them in their own language ; and others, combining the 
two languages in the same poem, changed them in every 
alternate couplet, and sometimes at every second line. 
At this time, the scarcity of good French books written 
in England was so great that the higher ranks of society 
were obliged to procure from France the romances and 
tales with which they diverted themselves in the long 
evenings, and the ballads which enlivened their banquets 
and other festive gatherings. But the war of rivalry, which 
at that time broke out between England and France, in- 
spiring the nobility of both nations with reciprocal aver- 
sion, lessened in the eyes of the Anglo-Normans, the at- 
tractions of the literature imported from France ; and 
obliged all " gentlemen " who were nice on the point of 
national honor to content themselves with the reading of 
works produced at home. Such of them as inhabited 
London and frequented the court still had opportunities 
of gratifying their taste for the poetry and the language 
of their ancestors; but the lords and knights who lived in 
retirement in their castles, and who had well night lost 
the use of French as their vernacular, were obliged to es- 
cape ennui by admitting to their presence English story- 
tellers and ballad-singers, whom they had hitherto dis- 
dained, as being fit to amuse none but citizens and vil- 
lains. 1 

These authors for the commonalty were distinguished 
from those who, at the same period, wrote for the court 
and the superior nobility, by a great esteem for the labor- 
ing classes, peasants, millers, tavern-keepers, etc. The 
writers of French commonly treated the men of that class 
with the utmost contempt. Except in ridiculing them, 
they gave them no place in their poetical narratives in 
which all that passed was between puissant s barons et nobles 
dames, damoiselles et gentils chevaliers. The English authors, 
on the contrary, took for the subjects of their "merry 

1 Mani noble I have y-seighe 
That no freynche couthe seye. 
(Romance of Arthur and Merlin, quoted by Walter Scott ; Introduction to 
Sir Tristram, page xxx). 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



263 



tales " plebeian adventures like those of " Piers Plough- 
man " and other stories of the kind, so abundant in the 
works of Chaucer. In his criticism on the idiom used ex- 
clusively by men of high birth, contrasting their Anglo- 
Norman dialect, antiquated and incorrect, with the polite 
and graceful French of the court of France, this author is 
often quite humorous and sarcastic. Thus, in his portrait- 
ure of a prioress of high blood, he says of her that she 
spoke French neatly and correctly as it was taught at the 
school of Stratford-Athbow, but that she was unac- 
quainted with the French of Paris. 1 

Hygden, as we have seen, writing shortly before the 
issue of Edward's statute, tells us that in his day French 
was still the language which the children of gentlemen 
were taught to speak from their cradle, and the only lan- 
guage that was allowed to be used by boys at school ; the 
effect of which was, that even the country people gener- 
ally understood it and affected its use. The tone, how- 
ever, in which this is stated by Hygden indicates that the 
public feeling had already begun to set in against these 
customs, and that, if they still kept their ground from use 
and wont, they had lost their hold upon any firmer or 
surer stay. Accordingly, about a quarter of a century or 
thirty years later, his translator Trevisa finds it necessary 
to subjoin the following explanation or correction : " This 
maner was myche yused tofore the first moreyn [before 
the first murrain or plague, which happened in 1349], and 
is siththe som dele [somewhat] ychaungide. For John 
Cornwaile, a maister of gramer, cnaungide the lore [learn- 
ing] in gramer scole and construction of [from] Frensch 
into Englisch, and Richard Pencriche lerned that maner 
teching of him, and other men of Pencriche. So that now, 
the yere of owre Lord a thousand thre hundred foure score 
and fyve, of the secunde King Rychard after the Con- 
quest nyne, in alle the gramer scoles of England children 
leveth Frensch, and construeth and lerneth an [in] Eng- 
lisch, and haveth thereby avauntage in oon [one] side and 
desavauntage in another. Her [their] avauntage is, that 
thei lerneth her [their] gramer in lasse tyme than children 
were wont to do ; desavauntage is, that now children of 
gramer scole kunneth [know] no more Frensch than can 

1 . . . . Frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly 
after the scole at Stratford-atte-Bowe, 
for Frenssh of Parys was to hire unknowe. 
{Prologue to Canterbury Tales). 



264 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

her lifte heele [knows their left heel] ; and that is harm for 
hem [them], and [if] thei schul passe the see and travaile 
in strange londes, and in many other places also. Also 
gentilmen haveth now mych ylefte for to teche her [their] 
children Frensch." 

This was written in 1383, and no doubt the statute of 
twenty years previous had greatly favored the develop- 
ment of the new national language. The statute itself, 
however, was drawn up in French, 1 and so statutes con- 
tinued to be for more than a hundred years afterward ; 
yet by authorizing the use of English in legal proceedings, 
for the convenience of those who were not conversant 
with French, its immediate result was an increased culti- 
vation of the vernacular, which, being now placed on equal 
ground with the Norman idiom, began to be rapidly im- 
proved in the mouths of the better classes and in the works 
of the more eminent writers. Borrowing more than ever 
words and terms from the French vocabulary, and enrich- 
ing itself with the spoils of its rival, it progressed in cul- 
tivation and popularity, and thereby in no small degree 
contributed to the decline of the latter. This decline was 
temporarily retarded by the conquest of Normandy and 
a part of France by Henry V, and the possession of these 
countries under Henry VI. The presence of Charles of 
Orleans at the court of England, and that of the other 
princes and nobles made prisoners at Azincourt, and of 
the poets in their suite, even contributed for a while to 
improve the Anglo-Norman dialect ; but its use became 
more and more limited, and soon entirely confined to the 
court and the higher aristocracy. Business was now al- 
most all conducted in English, and every civil case tried 
in that idiom throughout the whole land ; still, such was 
the force of prejudice or routine, that in the proceedings 
instituted against nobles before the high court of Parlia- 
ment, which tried charges of treason, or before the courts 
of chivalry, which decided in affairs of honor, the old 
official French continued to be employed up to a late date, 
and the sentences of all the tribunals were pronounced, 
and the registers and rolls known by the name of records, 
were drawn up in French. In general, it was the custom 
of the lawyers of all classes, even when pleading in Eng- 
lish, to use on almost every occasion certain French phrases 
as: Ah! sire, je vous jure; Ah! de par Dieu; A ce j'as- 

1 See page 286. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 265 

sente, and other similar exclamations with which Chaucer 
never fails to interlard their discourses whenever he in- 
troduces lawyers in character in his verse. All this has 
now gone by,' and belongs to past ages, except some dark 
terms which the law has retained, and of which few but 
the initiated know the exact meaning. Even at this time, 
in these United States, we have still courts of oyer and 
terminer ; and oyez, generally pronounced o yes, is still the 
introductory cry of the official connected with the court, 
inviting silence and attention to the court's proceedings. 

In Chaucer's time, that is, at the end of the fourteenth 
century, French was still the official language in England 
of all the political bodies and high personages whose ex- 
istence was connected with the Norman conquest. It was 
spoken by the king, his bishops, the judges, and the earls 
and barons ; and it was the language which their chil- 
dren learned from their earliest years. Still the posi- 
tion of the aristocracy, who had preserved it for three 
centuries and a half as a mark of nobility, amid a people 
speaking a language quite different, had not been favor- 
able to its progress ; and when compared with the French 
of the court of France at the same period, it was rather 
antiquated and incorrect in grammar and pronunciation. 
Some expressions were used which were peculiar to the 
provincial dialects of Normandy, and the manner of pro- 
nunciation, as far as can be judged from the orthography 
of the records, much resembled the French Canadian ac- 
cent and pronunciation of the present day ; and this ac- 
cent, added to certain English intonation, arising from a 
growing familiarity with that language, made the Anglo- 
French of the period an idiom quite distinct from the 
French of Paris. 

Bad as it was, the French of the nobles of England had 
at least the advantage of being spoken and pronounced in 
a uniform manner, while the new English tongue, com- 
posed as it was of Norman, Saxon, Dutch, and Danish 
words and idioms, joined by fortuitous combinations, 
varied in every province and in every town. This lan- 
guage, of which we will in turn examine the changes and 
the elements in another chapter, had become enriched by 
the successive addition of all the French barbarisms uttered 
by the English, and all the Saxon barbarisms uttered by 
the Normans, in their endeavors to understand each other. 
Every individual, according to his fancy, or the degree of 
knowledge he possessed of either language, borrowed 
19 



266 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

phrases and combined in an arbitrary manner whatever 
words first presented themselves to his memory. In gen- 
eral, each man sedulously introduced into his conversation 
the little French that he was master of, in order thereby 
to imitate the great, and have the appearance of a person 
of distinction. 1 This mania which, according to a writer 
of the fourteenth century, had extended itself even to the 
peasantry, 2 made it difficult to write the English of the 
period in a manner generally intelligible. Chaucer seems 
even to have been apprehensive that, owing to the great 
variety of dialects, his poems would not be relished out of 
London, and he prays God to grant his book the grace of 
being understood by all who choose to read it. 3 

It was in the first half of the fifteenth century that 
English, gradually gaining higher estimation as a literary 
language, at length entirely superseded French, except 
among the highest nobles, who, before they wholly aban- 
doned the old idiom of their ancestors, continued to speak 
it at home and among themselves, at the same time read- 
ing with equal pleasure works written in either language. 
We find the mark of this equality, to which the language 
of the commonalty had risen, in the public acts which, 
from the year 1400 or thereabouts, are alternately and in- 
differently drawn up in French and English. The first 
bill of the lower house of Parliament that was written 
in the English language bears the date of 1485 ; it is not 
known how much longer the upper house retained the 
language of the aristocracy and of the conquest, but from 
the year 1488 no more French pieces are to be found in 
the printed collection of the public documents of Eng- 
land. There are, however, some letters written and wills 
drawn up in French by certain nobles, and some French 
epitaphs of later date, and even law reports are found 
written up in French until the year 1600. Various pages 
of the historians also prove that, until the end of the 
sixteenth century, the kings of England, and the great 
lords at their court, knew and spoke French well. Henry 
VIII proclaimed French the court language, and required 
a knowledge of it in every one who applied for office. 4 

1 Wherfor it is sayd by a comon proverb, Jack woude be a gentil man if he 
coude speke Frensche. — Trevisa's translation of Hygderis Polychronium. 

2 Quibus (nobilibus) profecto rurales homines assimilari volentes, ut per hoc 
spectabiliores videantur francigenari satagunt omni nisu. — Ranulph. Hygden, 
Polychron., apud rer. Anglic. Script., p. 210. 8 See page 341, note 2. 

4 The first French grammar was published in London in 1530, under the 
auspices of Henry VIII, and is a work of considerable merit. Its title is: 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 2 6j 

This is the last instance of invidious class distinction 
made by the traditional use of French at the English 
court; since that time a correct knowledge thereof has 
been merely an accomplishment of individuals, and not 
one necessarily attached to high birth. French was no 
longer the first language lisped by the children of the 
English nobles, but became to them, like the ancient and 
the continental languages, an object of chosen study, and 
one of the criteria of a distinguished education. 

Thus, four centuries after the conquest of England by 
the Normans, the difference of language, which, together 
with the inequality of civil condition, had marked the 
separation of the families sprung from the two races, had 
well nigh disappeared. The complete amalgamation of 
the two primitive idioms — a certain sign of the mixture 
of the two races — was perhaps accelerated in the fifteenth 
century by the long and sanguinary civil war of the 
houses of York and Lancaster, which, by ruining a great 
number of noble families, obliged them to form alliances 
with people of inferior condition ; and thus the reign of 
Henry VII (1485-1509) may be considered as the period 
when the distinction of language and rank ceased to cor- 
respond in a general manner to that of races, and as the 
commencement of the state of society at present existing 
in England. The successor of Henry VII was the last 
king who placed at the head of his ordinances the old 
formula, " Henry, the eighth of that name since the con- 
quest." 1 But after him, the kings of England have re- 
tained the custom of using the old Norman language 
when they give the royal assent to acts of Parliament, or 
when formerly they used the veto, as : Le roy le veult ; le 
roy s adviser a; le roy mercie ses loyaitx subjets accept e leur be- 
nevolence et ainsi le veult. These formulas which seem, 

E Esclarcissement de la langue francoyse compost par maistre Jehan Palsgrave, 
Anglois natif de Londres, et gradue" de Paris. Shortly after, Gilles du Guez, a 
Frenchman residing in England, published another grammar of his langue ma- 
ternelle et naturelle, as he calls it, and entitled : An Introductotie for to lerne to 
rede, to pronounce and to speke French trewly, compyled for the right high, excel- 
lent, and most virtuous lady, the lady Mary of Englande, doughter to our most 
gracious soverayn, lorde Kyng Henry the eight. This last work, not so large as 
that of Palsgrave, but eminently practical, had three editions in a few years, and 
became the basis of the best French grammars that ever since have been pub- 
lished in England. The first French dictionary was also published in England 
in 161 1, by Cotgrave. 

1 In the ancient acts the date was given both from the Christian era and 
the year of the conquest, in thiswise: E an del incarnacion 1233, del conquest 
de Engleterre centisme sexante setime. 



268 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

after a lapse of seven hundred years, to refer the royalty 
of England to its foreign origin have, nevertheless, not 
appeared odious to any one since the sixteenth century ; 
on the contrary, it is a remarkable fact that from that 
time to this the language of France has always been 
much studied in England, and especially affected by those 
of the community who assume to themselves the privi- 
lege of leading the fashion. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 269 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SCRAPS FROM ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS, ILLUSTRATING THE 
ANGLO-NORMAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. 

From what has been said in the preceding chapter it 
is evident that, in order to form a just idea of the changes 
that can be traced to Norman influence, we must know 
something of the language whose contact has so deeply 
affected the native speech of England. The Normans 
spoke French ; but the French they brought with them 
in the eleventh century resembled that of the fourteenth 
and fifteenth centuries as little as the latter resembled the 
French of the present day. ' A mere knowledge of mod- 
ern French, therefore, would be of little avail to explain 
the elder forms of Norman French in England, and still 
less to account for the many Latin terms that subse- 
quently have found their way into the English language. 
The literary or classical Latin, it must be observed, had 
its origin in the unwritten languages and dialects of Italy. 
When the former ceased to be a living language, tne 
latter still survived, and, modified by contact with the 
idioms and dialects of Gaul, became there a new language, 
which shows itself independent of the Latin from the 
ninth century. It is therefore only by going back to the 
origin of the language, and by studying its history from 
the time of the Roman conquest of Gaul down through 
the Middle Ages, that we shall be able to understand cor- 
rectly the nature of the changes which transformed Latin 
into French, and to determine the real share of the An- 
glo-Norman French in transforming the ancient speech of 
England into modern English. For this purpose we de- 
vote a special part of our work to this subject in Appen- 
dix, a previous perusal of which will not only secure a 
correct understanding of the following specimens of An- 
glo-Norman French, but also assist in the solution of 
many etymological problems, which will undoubtedly be 
noticed by the student as containing the key for the solu- 
tion of similar problems in his own language. 



270 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

The Lord's Prayer. 

From the Psalter of William the Conqueror. 

Li nostre pere ki ies es ciels 

saintefiez seit li tuens nums 

Seit faite la tue voluntet 

si cum en ciel e en la terre 

avienget li tuns regnes 

li nostre pan cotidian dun a nus oi 

e pardunes a nus les detes essi cume nus pardununs a nos 

deteurs 
Ne nus mener en tentation 
mais delivre nus de mal. Amen. 



Laws of William the Conqueror. 

After the Oaths of Strasburg, found on page 600, and the poem on Sainte 
Eulalie, found on page 602, the eldest monument, written in Langue d'oil, and 
of which the age is clearly indicated, is the Laws of William the Conqueror, 
which were promulgated in 1069. This document is, by its antiquity, one of 
the most important as well as interesting, not only for the study of the lan- 
guage, but also for that of history and of Middle-Age jurisprudence. The en- 
tire code comprises sixty sections. As a specimen, we give here the introduc- 
tion and the first three sections, as found in Fell's Rerum anglicarum scrip- 
tores ; Historia Ingulphi, the original of which distinctly sets forth that the 
Laws as copied were in the very idiom in which they were promulgated, stat- 
ing even the reason why the Normans used their own language and not the 
Anglo-Saxon. 1 

1 Tantum tunc Anglicos abominati sunt (Nortnanni) ut quantocunque 
merito pollerent, de dignitatibus repellerentur ; et multo minus habiles alieni- 
gense, de quacunque alia natione quae sub ccelo est, extitissent, gratanter assu- 
merentur. Ipsum etiam idioma tantum abhorrebant quod leges terrce, statutaque 
anglicorum regum lingua gallica tractarentur ; et pueris etiam in scholis princi- 
pia litterarum grammatica gallice, ac non anglice, tractarentur ; modus etiam 
scribendi anglicus omitteretur, et modus gallicus in chartis et in libris omnibus 
admitteretur. — Hist. Ingulph., i, p. 70. 

Attuli eadem vice mecum de Londoniis in meum monasterium leges 
sequissimi regis Edwardi quas dominus meus inclytus rex Wilhelmus authenti- 
cas esse et perpetuas, per totum regnum Angliae inviolabiliter tenendas sub 
pcenis gravissimis, proclamarat, et suis justiciariis commendarat, eodem idiomate 
quo editce sunt ; ne per ignorantiam contingat, nos vel nostros aliquando, in, 
nostrum grave periculum, contraire, et offendere ausu temerario, regiam majes- 
tatem, ac in ejus censuras rigidissimas improvidum pedem ferre contentas (sic, 
contemtas) saepius in eisdem, hoc modo .... etc. — Ibid., p. 83. 

The Historia Monasteria Croylandensis attributed to Ingulphus, a writer of 
the eleventh century, was for a long time accepted as genuine, and also regarded 
as one of the most valuable sources of historical information, inasmuch as it in- 
cludes, in addition to the history of the monastery, much that relates to the 
kingdom at large. In proportion to the estimation in which this work was 
held, was the amount of error of which it was productive, it being since proved 
to be a composition of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The Laws of 
William, however, are admitted to be copied correctly. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



271 



ORIGINAL TEXT. 

Ces sount les leis et les cus- 
tumes que li reis William grentat 
a tut le puple de Engleterre 
apres le conquest de la terre. 
Ice les meismes que li reis Ed- 
ward sun cosin tint devant 
lui. 1 

Qo est a saveir : 



TRANSLATION. 

Ce sont les lois et les coutu- 
mes que le roi Guillaume assura 
a tout le peuple d'Angleterre, 
apres la conquete du pays^ cel- 
les-la memes que le roi Edou- 
ard, son cousin, maintint avant 
lui. 

C'est a savoir : 



Pais a saint Yglise. 2 — De quel 
forfait que home out fait en eel 
tens, e il pout venir a sainte 
yglise, out pais de vie e de mem- 
ore ; e se alquons meist main 
en celui qui la mere Yglise re- 
quired, se ceo fust u evesque, u 
abbeie, u yglise de religiun, ren- 
dist ceo que il i avereit pris, e^ 
cent solz de forfait ; e de mere 
yglise de paroisse, xx solz ; e de 
chapele, x solz. 



E qui enfraint la pais le rei en 
Merchenelae, 3 cent solz les 



Immunite de la sainte Eglise. 
— Quelque crime qu'un horarae 
ait fait en ce temps, s'il peut se 
refugier en sainte eglise, qu'il ait 
surete" pour sa vie et pour la 
conservation de ses membres ; 
et si quelqu'un mit la main sur 
celui qui aurait eu recours a 
notre mere l'Eglise, que ce fut 
dans une cathedrale, ou dans 
une abbaye, ou dans une eglise 
de communaute, qu'il rende ce 
qu'il y aura pris, et qu'il paye 
cent sous d'amende ; si ce fut 
dans la principale eglise d'une 
paroisse, vingt sous, et dans une 
chapelle, dix sous. 

Et qui enfreint la, paix du roi 
est passible, dans la loi des Mer- 



1 Of William's cousin, Edward the Confessor, and of his revival of the an- 
cient Anglo-Saxon laws, Beneoit de Sainte-More says : 

Mult ama Deu e saint Iglise, 
E mult fist biens en mainte guise ; 
Ententis fu a povres genz ; 
Les leis e les viez testamenz 
Del ancien accostomance 
Mist en novele remembrance. 

Chron. des dues de Norm., torn, iii, p. 84. 

2 Pais d saint Yglise, in low Latin, pax sanctce Ecclesice, originally meant 
the safety which the Church offered to criminals who sought a refuge at the 
foot of the altar, and later on, the immunity or privilege granted by the kings 
to the Church to give an asylum to criminals proceeded against by justice. La 
pais le rei meant the public safety resulting from the protection of life and prop- 
erty by royal authority, and in course of time it came to mean the royal pro- 
tection itself, the royal safeguard, the laws and regulations by means of which 
order is maintained. In English, " the king's peace." 

3 Merchenelae, Anglo-Saxon, from Mercna, Mercian, and lah, law. Lex Mer- 
ciorum. 



272 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



amendes ; altresi de hemfare 1 
e de aweit prepensed. 



ciens, de cent sous d'amende ; 
de meme pour hemfare et pour 
guet-apens. 



11. 

Icez plaiz 2 afierent a la co- 
roune le rei. 

Et se alquens, u quens, u pro- 
vost mesfeist as homes de sa 
baillie, e de 00 fuist atint de la 
justice lu roi, forfait fust u du- 
ble de ce que altre fust forfait. 



in. 

E qui en Danelae 3 fruisse 
la pais le roi vn vinz liverez e 
mi les amendez ; e lez forvaiz 
[le roi] qui afierent al vescunte 
xl solz en Merchenelae et l 
solz en Westsexenelae. 4 E 
cil frans hoem qui aveit sac, 5 e 
soc, 6 e tol, 7 e tem, 8 e infan- 



Ces causes appartiennent a 
la couronne royale. 

Et si quelqu'un, ou comte, 
ou prevdt, prejudicia aux hom- 
ines de sa juridiction, et que de 
ce il fut convaincu par la justice 
du roi, il fut puni au double de 
ce qu'un autre aurait ete~ puni. 

in. 

Et dans la loi les Danois, qui 
enfreint la paix du roi est pas- 
sible de cent quarante-quatre 
livres d'amende ; et pour les 
cas royaux qui appartiennent 
au vicomte, quarante sous dans 
la loi des Merciens, et cinquante 
sous dans la loi de Westsex. 



1 Hemfare, Anglo-Saxon, from hem, ham, heim, home, dwelling ; see pages 
190-193, and fare, aggression, from the verb faran, " to go ; to go against." 
This word is thus explained in the laws of Henry I, section 80. Hamsocna est 
vel Hamfare si quis prsemeditate ad domum eat ubi suum hostem esse scit, et ibi 
eum invadit. Hemfare, therefore, means " housebreaking ; " " burglary," which 
itself is an old French word from bourg, "town," and larron, " robber." 

2 Plaiz ox plaids. In the latter form the word occurs in the Oath of Stras- 
burg; see page 601, Appendix, from the Latin placitum ; placere. Cases to be 
settled amicably, " quod placet consentientibus" They said prendre plaid as we 
now say prendre un arrangement. 

8 Danelae, Anglo-Saxon from Dane and la A. Lex Danorum. 

4 Westsexenelae, Anglo-Saxon from West-Seaxe and lah. Lex Westsaxo- 
num. 

6 Sac, Anglo-Saxon sac, sace, sache, a case ; a lawsuit. Sac was the right 
vested in the lord to call up cases and to impose fines. 

6 Soc, Anglo-Saxon soc, soca, soce, soche, was the right vested in the lord to 
bring suit before his own court. Soc est secta de hominibus in curia domini, 
secundum consuetudinem regni. (Anc. MS., quoted by Spelmann.) Soca est 
quod si aliquis quserit aliquid in terra sua, etiam furtum ; sua est justicia, si in- 
ventum an non. — Laws of Edward the Confessor, sect, xxiii. 

1 Tol or thol was the lord's privilege of exemption from all duties of trans- 
fer, purchase, and sale. Thol, quod nos dicimus tolonium, est scilicet quod 
habeat libertatem vendendi et emendi in terra sua. — Laws of Edward, ch. 
xxiv. Toll, estre quitte de turnus ; c'est costume de marche. — Formula angl. 
Thorn. Madox, p. 47. 

8 Tern, team, the?n, theam, in Anglo-Saxon, meant the right of a freeman 
over all the children born of serfs in his domain. Such children were called 
serfs natifs. Thea?n est regale privilegium quo qui fruitur habet villain et 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



273 



genetheof, 1 se il est inplaide Et l'homme libre qui a sac, et 
e seit mis en forfait en le counte, soc, et tol, et tem, et infan- 
afiert al forfait a oes le vescunte genetheof, s'il est accuse et 
xl ores 2 en Denelae, e de mis a. l'amende en cour com- 
altre home qui ceste franchise tale, il appartient, pour amende, 
nen ad xxxn ores. De ces quarante ores au vicomte, dans 
xxxii ores, avrat le vescunte a la loi les Danois, et pour tout 
oes le roi x ores, e cil qui li autre homme qui n'a point cette 
plait avrat dereined vers lui xii franchise, trente-deux ores. Sur 
ores, et le seignur en ki fiu il ces trente-deux ores, le vicom- 
maindra x ores. Qo est en te retiendra dix ores pour le 
Denelae. roi ; celui qui aura soutenu 

l'accusation contre le coupable 
aura douze ores, et le seigneur 
dans le fief de qui demeurera le 
coupable, dix ores. Ceci est 
dans la loi des Danois. 



Henry I. 
Duke of Normandy and King of England. 

This prince, called le Beau Clerc, was the son of William the Conqueror, and 
a pupil of Lanfranc. He must have attained great proficiency under such a 
master to be named clerc, as, in the twelfth and thirteenth century, this title was 
synonymous with that of learned, in the same way as the word clergie then meant 
" science." Mathilda, of Scotland, his first queen, was celebrated by the his- 
torians for her love of poetry, and Adelaide of Leuven, his second wife, also 
patronized the Norman and Anglo-Norman poets ; so that the love of those two 
queens for poetry, and the king's own taste for letters, made his court an asylum 
for the muses. Many manuscripts in the libraries of France and England bear 
the name of this prince as their author. Among others, there exists a poem of 
his called Urbanus ou Vhome poly, in which he lays down certain rules of con- 
duct and behavior for the higher classes. It is a kind of " Book of Etiquette " 
for the use of good society of that time, and forms a very interesting little work 
illustrating the manners of the age. One of its first precepts is that of speaking 
French, which he recommends as part of the accomplishments of a well bred 
gentleman. 

Soiez debonere 1 et corteis ; 2 

taches surtout, parler franceis. 

propaginem ; id est potestatem habendi nativos, bondos et villanos in feudo aut 
manerio suo. — Rastall, art. Theam. 

1 Infanganetheof or infangenthef, in Anglo-Saxon, meant the right of the 
lord to judge and condemn a robber found on his domain in possession of the 
stolen goods. Infangentef hoc est, latrones capti in dominio, vel in feodo ves- 
tro, et de suo latrocinio convicti, in curia vestra judicentur. (Will. Thorn, p. 
2030.) The word is composed of in, fangen, "to catch," and theof ox thef, " a 
thief." 

2 Ore, Anglo-Saxon dr, " one of the native minerals." " Hit is eac berende 
on wecga drum arcs and isernes." It is fertile also in ores of lumps of brass 
and iron. (Alfred, transl. of Bede, lib. i, c. I.) In William's time the ore was 
a coin of the value of about forty cents. 



274 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

quar 3 molt 4 est langage alosee, 5 
de gentilhome est molt amee 6 

I, debonnaire. 2, courtois. 3, car. 4, beaucoup. 5, estime. 6, aime. 



Geoffroi Gaimar. 

This trouvere, who wrote in the middle of the twelfth century, has left us 
many works in verse, the most remarkable of which are a history of the Anglo- 
Saxon kings, and one of the first two Anglo-Norman kings, forming a sequel to 
the preceding. The following extract, taken from the latter, gives some curious 
details of the functions of the Jongleurs in the army of William the Conqueror. 
Wace also speaks of them (see page 275), and both mention a certain Taillefer 
who was so distinguished by his talents that this prince granted him the honor 
of striking the first blow on the memorable day of Hastings. That a class of 
men who cultivated the arts of amusement as a profession were known and 
esteemed by the Normans, at the time of the conquest, is moreover proved by the 
evidence of the " Domesday-book " in which we find a certain Berdic possessed 
of a large tract of land in Gloucestershire, under the title of Joculator regis. 
The register, of course, does not explain the talents of this joculator or jongleur, 
but it may be fairly assumed that they were similar to those of the minstrel 
Taillefer, above mentioned and alluded to in the following extract. As the army 
was drawn up in battle array, he spurred his horse forward in front and began 
the song, famous throughout Gaul, of the exploits of Charlemagne and Roland. 
As he sang, he performed many marvelous feats of dexterity, throwing his lance 
high up in the air as if it were a small stick, catching it by the point before 
he cast it against the enemy, and repeating the same operation with his sword, 
so that those who beheld him considered him a conjuror. Having trained his 
horse to run with his mouth wide open, he at last made a sudden attack on the 
Saxons, who, apprehensive of being bitten by the furious animal, opened their 
ranks for a moment, but soon surrounded the brave jongleur who, overcome by 
the number, perished, giving by his death the signal of combat. 

Moult 1 i 2 out 3 genz d'ambes parz, 4 
de hardement 5 sont leoparz 
Un de's Franceis done se hasta, 6 
devant les altres 7 chevalcha ; 
taillefer cil 8 est apelez, 
joglere 9 esteit 10 hardiz asez ; 
armes aveit e bon cheval, 
hardiz est e noble vassal. 
Devant les altres cil se mist, 11 
devant Engleis merveilles fist : 
sa lance prist par le tuet 12 
com 13 si co 14 fust un bastunet, 15 
encontre mont 16 halt M la geta, 18 
e par le fer receue 19 Ta ; 
traiz fez 20 issi 21 geta sa lance, 
la quarte feiz 22 moult pres s'avance, 
entre les Engleis la lanca, 
parmi 23 le cors ** un en naffra ; 25 
puis treist 26 s'espee, 27 arere 28 vint, 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 2 ?$ 

geta s'espee ke 29 il tint 
encontre mont, puis la receit. 30 
L'un dit at altre ki 31 co veit 32 
ke co esteit 33 enchantement 
ke cil feseit devant la gent. 
Quant treis feiz out gete l'espee, 
le cheval od ** gule 35 baiee 36 
vers les Engleis vint esleise ; 37 
alquanz 38 quident 39 estre mange 
par le cheval ki issi baiout. 40 
Le jugleor 9 apris li 41 out. 

i, Beaucoup. 2, y. 3, eut. 4, des deux cotes. 5, hardiesse. 6, hata. 
7, autres. 8, celui-ci. 9, jongleur. 10, 6tait. n,mit. 12, pointe. 13, comme. 
14, ce. 15, baguette. 16, en l'air. 17, haut. 18, jeta. 19, recu. 20, trois 
fois. 21, ainsi. 22, la quatrieme fois. 23, a travers. 24, corps. 25, frappa. 
26, tire. 27, son epee. 28, arriere. 29, que. 30, recoit. 31, qui. 32, voit. 
33, £tait. 34, avec. 35, gueule. 36, beante. 37, se ruer. 38, quelques-uns. 
39, craignent. 40, baillait. 41, lui. 



Robert Wace. 

Wace was born in the isle of Jersey. His father followed Duke William 
in the conquest of England, according to a roll preserved by Leland, in which 
his name figures as one of the chieftains who accompanied this prince on his 
expedition. The author informs us that he occupied the place of clerc-lisant 
under Henry I and Stephen, and that he has written many romances, of which 
two alone have been handed down to us. The first, which bears the date of 
1 15 5, is the Roman du Brut a" Angleterre , so called from the fabulous history of 
Brutus, great grandson of Eneas and first king of the Britons. It includes the 
history of the kings who reigned in Britain from nearly the epoch of the ruin of 
Troy to the year 689. This poem was afterward translated by Layamon into 
Early English (see page 393). The second work of Wace is a history in verse 
of the dukes of Normandy, improperly called Roman de Rou., which he com- 
menced in 1 160 and finished in 1174. He states that he wrote in French for 
the instruction of those who did not understand Latin. The following is the 
author's version of the doings of Taillefer on the day of the battle of Hastings, 
referred to in the preceding extract. His style is clearer than that of his pre- 
decessor, and his diction more fluent and easy : 

Taillefer, qui mult 1 bien chantout, 2 
sor 3 un cheval qui tost 4 alout, 5 
devant le due alout chantant 
de Karlemaigne et de Rollant 
e d'Olivier e des vassals 
qui morurent 6 en Rencevals. 
quant il orent 7 chevalchie 8 tant 
qu'as 9 Engleis vindrent apreismant, 10 
* sires', dist n Taillefer. ' merci, 
jo vus 12 ai lungement servi, 
tut 13 mun servise me devez ; 
hui, 14 se vus plaist, 18 le me rendez. 



276 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

pur 15 tut guerredun 16 vus requier 
e si 17 vus voil 19 forment 20 preier : 
otreiez 21 mei, que jo n'i faille, 
le premier colp 22 de la bataille.' 
Li dus respondi 'jo l'otrei.' 
e Taillefer puinst a desrei, 23 
devant tuz 24 les altres 25 se mist. 26 
un Engleis feri, 27 si l'ocist ; 28 
a terre estendu l'abati. 29 
puis 30 traist 31 s'espee, altre en feri. 
pois a cri'e ' venez, venez ! 
que faites vus ? ferez, ferez ! ' 
dune l'unt Engleis avirune. 31 
al segunt 32 colp qu'il out 33 dune 
ez vus M noise levee et cri, 
e d'ambes parz 35 pople esturmi. 36 
Normant a assaillir entendent 
e li Engleis bien se deffendent. 

1, ties. 2, chantait. 3, sur. 4, vivement. 5, allait. 6, moururent. 7. 
eurent. 8, chevauche\ 9, aux. 10, approchant. 11, dit. 12, vous. 13, tout. 
14, aujourd'hui. 18, plait. 15, pour. 16, recompense. 17, aussi. 19, veux, 
20, fortement. 21, accordez-moi. 22, coup. 23, piqua brusquement des deux. 
24, tous. 25, autres. 26, mit. 27, ferit. 28, il le tua. 29, abattit. 30, puis. 
31, environne. 32, second. 33, eut. 34, voil&. 35, de part et d'autre. 36, se 
mit en mouvement. 



Beneoit de Sainte-More. 

This trouvhre flourished during the reign of Henry II, from whom he re- 
ceived an order to write, in French verse, the history of the Dukes of Nor- 
mandy. This flattering command leads us to believe that he was already known, 
by his compositions, as a poet of distinguished talents. Wace had then been 
engaged for several years on the same work, but being indolent, had made 
slow progress. When, however, he heard of the royal command to Beneoit de 
Sainte-More, and knew that his own reputation was at stake, he hastened to 
resume his work, and, as he had already written as far as the life of Duke Rich- 
ard II, he had no difficulty in completing his history of the Dukes of Normandy 
before Beneoit could finish his. The latter, however, far from being discour- 
aged by the success of his rival, redoubled his zeal, and fulfilled in time the 
command of his sovereign. His work commences with the first invasion of the 
Normans under Hastings and ends with the death of Henry I. Though infe- 
rior to Wace's, it is by no means without merit. As a specimen of his style, we 
extract the following lines, in which, to extol the glory of William the Con- 
queror, who in one day, and by a single battle, obtained the crown of England, 
he recalls the useless efforts of the kings of Greece against a single city during 
ten years : 

Agamemnon ne les Grezeis, 1 

ne bien plus de cinquante reis, 2 

ne porent 3 Troie en dix ans prendre ; 

unkes 4 ni sorent 5 tant entendre : 6 

e 7 ici 8 dux 9 od 10 ses Normanz, 



*77 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

e od ses altres buens 11 aidanz, 
conquist un reaume 12 plenier, 13 
e un grant pople 14 fort et fier, 
qui fu 15 merveille estrange et grant, 
sol 16 entre prime 17 e l'annitant. 18 

I, Grecs. 2, rois. 3, purent. 4, jamais. 5, surent. 6, esperer. 7, et. 
8, ce. 9, due. 10, avec. u, braves. 12, royaume. 13, entier. 14, peuple. 
15, fut. 16, seulement. 17, six heures du matin. 18, le soir. 



EVRARD. 

Evrard, monk of Kirkham, lived in Scotland about the middle of the 
twelfth century. He has left us a translation of the distichs of Cato into French 
verse, and is, in this language, the first known poet who wrote in mixed rhymes. 
He informs us that he was a canon of the order of St. Augustin in the abbey of 
Kirkham, and that when, in 1150, King David of Scotland founded the abbey 
of Holme Cultram, he created him its first abbot, in reward of his merits : 

Catun 

e ne saveit ren 



de crestienne lei ; 5 
ne purtant 6 ne dist 7 
ren en sun 8 escrit 9 



Partut 12 se Concorde 
e rens ne se descorde 
a seint escripture ; 
amender purrat 13 
celi 14 ki 15 voudrat 
y 16 mettre sa cure. 17 



I, Caton. 2, etait. 3, paien. 4, rien. 5, loi. 6, pourtant. 7, dit. 8, son. 
9, ecrit. 10, contre. II, foi. 12, partout. 13, pourra. 14, celui. 15, qui. 
16, y. 17, attention. 

Guillaume Herman. 

This poet wrote only on moral and religious subjects. His talent gained 
him the favor of the Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I, and the esteem 
of the high dignitaries of the Church ; at least, he states that many of his com- 
positions were written at their solicitation. We have no personal account of 
this author, except that by mentioning the eminent personages for whom he 
wrote, he gives us to understand that he lived in the twelfth century. His 
works exhibit a good deal of genius, and oftentimes an elevated mind. The 
following extract is a good specimen of his style : 

Cil 1 qui fist 2 home 3 de limon, 
cil qui fist ce que nus 4 veon 5 
et ce que nus ne poum 6 veir, 7 
cil qui fait toner 8 et pluveir, 9 



278 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

cil qui fait la terre trembler, 

qui fait les granz venz 10 assembler 

et combatre la suz en Tair, 

cil qui fait la foudre et l'eclair, 

quidez 11 vus qu'il li fust grief 12 

quant il n'a ni fin ni chief 13 

que sa parole chair prist ? 14 

Tutes 15 les choses que il fist, 

ne fist il dune 16 tut par parole 

bestes, 17 peissum, 18 oisel 19 qui vole 

tutes les choses que il fist, 

furent faites quant il le dist. 

Quant il dist : seit 20 jor, 21 il fu 22 jor, 

une clarte sans tenebror. 23 

et a ceo 24 ne demeura gaires; 25 

seient, 26 dist il, dous 27 luminaires, 

li 28 plus granz seit al jor done, 29 

et li autres a l'obscurite. 

Dune 30 fu li soleus 31 que vus veez 32 

dont vuz estes enluminez, 33 

et la lune qui fait son curs u 

et son cressant et son decurs 35 

il fis dune tut et tut deffra 36 

a tel hore 37 com li 38 plaira. 

1, celui. 2, fit. 3, homme. 4, nous. 5, voyons. 6, pouvons. 7, voir. 
8, tonnez. 9, pleuvoir. 10, vents, ir, croyez-vous. 12, difficile. 13, com- 
mencement. 14, prit. 15, toutes. 16, done. 17, betes. 18, poisson. 19, 
oiseau. 20, soit. 21, jour. 22, fut. 23, tenebres. 24, cela. 25, guere. 26, 
soient. 27, deux. 28, le, 29, donne. 30, alors. 31, soleil. 32, voyez. 33, 
eclaires. 34, cours. 35, declin. 36, detruira. 37, heure. 38, lui. 



GUICHARD DE BEAULIEU. 

This author, who lived at the end of the twelfth century, was a monk of 
the priory of Beaulieu, a dependency of the abbey of St. Albans. His principal 
work is a poem, or rather a kind of sermon in verse, on the vices of his cent- 
ury. The author confesses that he himself has enjoyed all the pleasures which 
he is about to censure, and that it is from his own experience that he intends to 
speak. From this it has been supposed that he was one of those knights who, 
after a turbulent and worldly life, took the cowl to end their days in a monas- 
tery which they themselves had founded or endowed. He begins by stating to 
his readers that he will not address them in Latin, but in French, in order to be 
more generally understood. The idea of writing sermons in verse may perhaps 
seem a strange one ; but it must be recollected that it was a general custom, at 
that time at least, with the Norman priests, on Sunday and festival days, to 
read to the people the lives of the saints in French verse, so that there was, 
after all, nothing strange in preaching the truths of the gospel in the same 
manner. The following lines, in which there is much charm in the simple and 
graceful naivete with which the author portrays the birth of our Saviour, will 
give an idea of the poem referred to above : 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 279 

II n'ot 1 chastel ne tur, 2 ne il n'ot fermete, 3 

ainz 4 est en une creche de viel antiquite, 

pastors od 5 lur 6 almaille 7 orent 8 dedenz hante ; 9 

ki 10 tut 11 le mund 18 governe povrement fud 13 enz 14 ne\ 

il n'out 15 lit a tourneiz 16 ne lit a or gete, 17 

ne coverte 18 de martre ne d'ermin engule. 19 

Celui ki tut governe et tut ad 20 ordine 21 

en la creche vit il vilment envolupe. 22 

La reine des cieiz 23 ki en sun cors 24 Tout porte 

entre li 25 et Joseph, sun cher fiz 29 unt garde* 

n'orent coilte 26 de lin ne de paile 27 roe. 88 

etc. 

1, n'eut. 2, tour. 3, forteresse. 4, au contraire. 5, avec. 6, leur. 7, 
betail. 8, eurent. 9, habite. 10, qui. if, tout. 12, monde. 13, fut. 14, la 
dedans. 15, n'eut. 16, rouleaux. 17, moule. 18, couverture. 19, teint en 
rouge. 20, a. 21, ordonne. 22, enveloppe. 23, cieux. 24, corps. 25, elle. 
29, fils, 26, matelas. 27, manteau couverture. 28, orne de ronds. 



Richard Cceur-de-Lion. 

Richard was the son of Henry II. An ardent imagination, a chivah-ic 
mind, and extreme bravery obtained him the surname by which he is known in 
history. On his return from the East, where he had distinguished himself by the 
taking of the isle of Rhodes, and by other brilliant exploits, while trying to pass 
through Germany, disguised as a pilgrim, he fell into the power of the Archduke 
of Austria, his sworn enemy, who kept him a prisoner. The place of his deten- 
tion was for a long time unknown, and the struggle of his proud and noble mind 
with adversity, the slowness of the negotiations when he was discovered, and 
the enormous ransom to be levied on his subjects already exhausted by war, all 
conspired to embitter his captivity and make him feel the misfortunes of a fet- 
tered king. But Richard loved letters, especially poetry, and it was while aban- 
doning himself to the inspirations of sorrow that he composed the following 
Servantois, addressed to his English, Norman, Portevin, and Gascon barons, 
reproaching them for the tardy zeal they manifested for his deliverance, and 
their parsimony in furnishing the means. (Every piece of Provencal poetry, the 
subject of which was not connected with love, was called sirvente, servantise, or 
servantois, in contradistinction to the amorous poetry of the troubadours, which 
was called chevaleresque.) 

Ja nuls horn pres non dira sa razon 
adrechament, si com hom dolens non ; 
mas per conort deu hom faire canson ; 
pro n'ay d'amis, mas paure son li don, 
ancta lur es, si per ma rezenson 
soi sai dos yvers pres. 

Or sapchon ben miey hom e miey baron, 
Angles, Norman, Peytavin e Gascon, 
qu'ieu non ay ja si paure compagnon 
qu'ieu laissasse, per aver, en preison, 



28o ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

non ho die mia per nulla retraison, 
mas anquar soi ie pres. 

Car sai eu ben per ver, certanament, 
qu'hom mort ni pres n'a amic ni parent, 
et si m laissan per aur ni per argent, 
mal m'es per mi, mas pieg m'es per ma gent, 
qu'apres ma mort n'auran reprochament, 
si sai mi laisson pres. 

No m meravilh s'ieu ay lo cor dolent, 
que mos shener met ma terra en turment ; 
no li membra del nostre sagrament 
que nos feimes el Sans cominalment ; 
ben sai de ver que gaire longament 
non serai en sai pres. 

Envoy. Suer comtessa, vostre pretz sobeiran 

sal dieus, e gard la bella qu'ieu am tan, 
ni per cui soi ja pres. 

This piece, written in Langue d'oc, Richard's mother-tongue, differs con- 
siderably in form from the preceding, which are in Langue cToil. This differ- 
ence will be readily perceived on an examination of the following translation : 

Jamais nul homme prisonnier ne dira sa raison 
Franchement, sinon comme homme malheureux, 
Mais pour consolation doit-on faire chanson ; 
Assez j'ai d'amis, mais pauvres sont les dons; 
Honte leur est, puisque pour ma rancon 
Je suis ici deux hivers prisonnier. 

Maintenant sachent bien mes sujets et mes barons 
Anglais, Normands, Poitevins et Gascons, 
Que je n'ai jamais eu si pauvre compagnon 
Que je laissasse pour argent en prison ; 
Je ne le dis point pour vous le reprocher, 
Mais encore suis-je prisonnier. 

Toutefois sais-je bien pour vrai, certainement, 
Qu'homme mort ou prisonnier n'a ami ni parent ; 
Et s'ils me laissent pour or et pour argent, 
Mal m'est pour moi, mais pire m'est pour mon peuple, 
Apres ma mort ils en auront reproche, 
Si ici ils me laissent prisonnier. 

Je ne m'etonne plus si j'ai le cceur dolent, 
Car mon seigneur 1 met ma terre en tourment ; 

1 Philippe-Auguste. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 281 

II ne lui souvient plus de notre serment 
Que nous fimes au saint ensemble. 
Bien je sais de vrai que guere longtemps 
Je ne serai ici prisonnier. 

Envoi. Soeur comtesse, que votre gloire superieure 

Dieu sauve ! et qu'il protege la belle que j'aime tant, 
Et par qui je suis deja prisonnier. 



Marie de France. 

This authoress was born in France according to her own statement, and as 
her surname indicates, but we are ignorant of what province she was a native, 
and the reasons for which she resided in England. It is, however, generally 
admitted that Normandy was her birthplace, and that she quitted it with a num- 
ber of Norman families, when Phillip Augustus made himself master of it in 
1204. She wrote in the beginning of the thirteenth century, and is the first 
woman who is known to have composed French verses. She has left us a col- 
lection of lays and fables, the latter of which especially display great powers of 
mind and knowledge of the human heart, and are distinguished by a simple and 
artless narration, a delicacy in the moral, and a peculiar turn of style, which 
make it very doubtful whether La Fontaine has not imitated our authoress 
rather than the Athenian and Roman fabulists. 

LA MORS 1 ET LI BOSQUILLON. 2 

Tant de loin que de prez 3 n'est laide 
la mors. La clamoit 4 a son ayde 
tosjors 5 ung 6 povre 7 bosquillon 
que 8 n'ot 9 chevance 10 ne sillon: 
"que ne viens, disoit, 6 ma mie, 11 
finer 12 ma dolorouse vie ! " 
Tant brama 13 qu'advint; 14 et de voix 
terrible : " Que veux-tu ? " — " Ce bois 
que m'aydiez a carguer, 15 madame ! " 
Peur et labeur n'ont mesme 16 game. 17 



I, mort. 2, bucheron. 3, pres. 4, appelait. 5, tous les jours. 6, un. 
7, pauvre. 8, qui. 9, n'eut. 10, heritage. II, amie. 12, finir. 13, desira. 
14, arriva. 15, charger. 16, meme. 17, voix. 



Robert Grosse-Teste, 

Bishop of Lincoln, in 1235, was regarded as one of the most learned prelates 
of his time. In addition to numerous works on theology, literature, and science, 
we have from him a poem on the sin of the first man and his redemption, in 
which work especially he displays a great deal of genius and facility of concep- 
tion. His description of the happiness of man in the state of innocence is truly 
interesting. After the fall of Adam, he introduces before the throne of the 
Almighty, Justice and Truth, who ask the condemnation of the criminal, while 
20 



282 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

Mercy and Peace plead in his favor. The promise of a Redeemer in the Son 
of God, who offers to take the place of the culprit, satisfies and reconciles the 
four sisters. 

The author states that he composed his poem for the benefit of those who 
did not understand Latin, and were desirous of being acquainted with the fun- 
damental truths of religion. But as for this purpose he selected the French 
language, without even mentioning English, we may infer that toward the 
middle of the thirteenth century the former was generally known in England, 
since one of the most worthy pontiffs of the island uses it for the instruction 
of the people. The following extract will give an idea of the work in question. 
Mercy expresses herself thus before God the Father : 

Entends a mei, 1 bel 2 douls 3 pere, 
et te rends a ma priere, 
por eel 4 dolent chetif prison 5 
que venir poet 6 a rancon. 
Par promesse le trairent 7 
par mal trepasser le flrent 
la promesse lui falserent, 8 
falsite 9 tuz 10 terns quererent -, 11 
et jo 12 ta fille sui 13 ainsnee 14 
sur tutes tes ovres 15 nomee. 
Ne direiz que ta fille feusse 16 
si tu de lui pitie" ne eusse. 
Merci par dreit 17 deist 18 aver 19 
et ta merci deit lui salver 20 
et ta tres dulce 21 piete" 
le deit mettre a salvete ; 22 
por 23 lui merci ades 24 crierai 
tant que merci lui otiendrai. 25 



I, moi. 2, beau. 3, doux. 4, ce. 5, prisonnier. 6, peut. 7, attirerent. 
8, fausserent, manquerent. 9, fanssete. 10, tous. 11, chercherent. 12, je. 
13, suis. 14, ainee. 15, ceuvres. 16, fusse. 17, droit. 18, doit. 19, avoir. 
20, sauver. 21, douce. 22, hors de peril. 23, pour. 24, toujours. 25, ob- 
tiendrai. 



Gauter de Bibblesworthe. 
Extract from his Anglo-Norman Grammar. 

The following extract is from a MS. of the commencement of the fourteenth 
century, bearing the title Treytyz ke moun sire Gauter de Bibblesworthe fist a 
ma dame Dyonisie de Mounchensy puraprise de language. It is a kind of gram- 
mar, and is quite interesting in the naiveti of its definitions. The name of the 
author shows that he was of Saxon origin : 

En les paupyrs 1 sont les cyz 2 (the hers of t/te eye tide) ; 

amount 3 les oys 4 sont les sourcyz 5 (the browes ....). 

vus 6 avetz 7 la levere 8 et le levere 9 (a lippe and an hare), 

et la livere 10 et le livere 10 (a pound and a boke). 

la levere si enclost 12 les dens ; 13 

le levere en boys 14 se tent 15 dedens ; 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 283 

la livere sert en marchaundyse ; 

le livere sert en seynt eglise, 

et le livere nous aprent clergye. 16 



I, paupieres. 2, cils. 3, dessus. 4, yeux. 5, sourcils. 6, vous. 7, 
8, levre. 9, lievre. 10, livre. 12, renferme. 13, dents. 14, bois. 15, 
16, science. 



Political Song. 
On the King's breaking his Confirmation of the Magna Charta. 

The following extract belongs to the kind of compositions alluded to on 
page 262, being a curious mixture of French and English. It is the prologue 
of a political song which appears to have been made toward the end of the 
year 1311, on the king's (Edward II) journey to the north, where he was joined 
by his lately banished favorite, Peter de Gaveston, and disregarded the charter 
which he had confirmed in the beginning of October of that year : 

L'en puet fere et defere, 

Ceo fait il trop sovent ; 
// nis nouther wel ne faire ; 

Therfore Engelond is shent. 
Nostre prince de Engletere, 

Par le consail de sa gent, 
At Westminster after the feire 

Maad a gret parlement. 
La chartre fet de eyre ; 

Jeo l'enteinte et bien le crey, 
It was holde to neih the fyre, 

Ant is molten al awey. 
Ore ne say mes qe dire, 

Tout i va a Tripolay, 
Hundred, chapitle, court, and shire, 

Al hit goth a devel way. 
Des plusages de la tere 

Ore escotez un sarmoun, 
Of iiij wise-men that ther were, 

Whi Engelond is brouht adoun. 
etc. 

TRANSLATION. 

A person may make, and unmake, 

it is what he too often does ; 

it is neither well nor fair ; 

on account of it England is ruined. 

Our prince of England, 

by the counsel of his people, 

at Westminster after the fair 

made a great parliament. 



284 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

The charter he made of wax, 

so I understand, and I readily believe it ; 

it was held too near the fire, 

and is all melted away. 

Now I know not what more to say, 

all goes to Tripoli, 

hundred, chapter, court and shire, 

it all goes the devil's way. 

Of the wisest men of the land 

now listen to a discourse, 

of four wise men that there were, 

why England is brought down. 

etc. 



Hymn to the Virgin. 

In French and Latin, in alternate lines ; it belongs to the middle of the 
fourteenth century : 

En Mai ki fet flurir les prez, 

et pullulare gramina, 
Et cist oysels chauntent assez, 

jocunda modulamina 
Li amaunt ki ai??ient vanitez 

quaerent sibi solamina 
Je met ver wus mes pensers 

o gloriosa domina. 

En wus espair solaz truver 

propinatrix solaminum 
Ki sovent soliez alegger 

gravatos mole criminum. 
Surement poet il esperer 

medicinam peccaminum, 
Ki ducement voet reclamer 

te lucis ante terminum. 



Political Song. 

This still more curious composition is another song of the times, and repeats 
the old cry against the oppression of the poor and honest by the rich, and the 
general corruption of the age. It forms a most astonishing medley of Latin, 
French, and English, and is of the same epoch as the preceding : 

Quant honme deit parleir, vldeat qu^e verba loquatur; 
Sen covent aver, ne stultior inveniatur. 
Quando quis loquitur, bote resoun reste therynne, 
Derisum patitur. ant lutel so shal he wynne. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 285 

En seynt eglise sunt multi s^epe priores ; 

Summe beoth wyse, multi sunt inferiores. 

When mon may mest do, tunc velle suum manifestat, 

In donis also, si vult tibi pr^emia pr^estat. 

Ingrato benefac, post hjec a peyne te verra ; 

Pur bon vin tibi lac non dat, nec rem tibi rendra. 

Sensum custodi, quasi mieu valt sen qe ta mesoun ; 

Thah thou be mody, robur nichil est sine resoun. 

Lex lyth doun over a/ } fallax fraus fallit ubique ; 

Ant love nys bote smal, quia gens se gestat inique. 

Wo walketh wyde, quoniam movet ira potentes : 

Ryht con nout ryde, quia vadit ad insipientes. 

Dummodo fraus superest, lex nul nout loneny londe j 

Et quia sic res est, ryht may nout radlyche stonde. 

Fals mon freynt covenaunt, quamvis tibi dicat " habebis." 

Vix dabit un veu gaunt, lene les mon postea flebis. 

Myn ant thyn duo sunt, qui frangunt plebis amorem ; 

Ce deus pur nus sunt facienda s^epe dolorem. 

Tresoun dampnificat, et paucis est data resoun ; 

Resoun certificat, confundit et omnia tresoun. 

Pees may nout wel be, dum stat per Nomina bina ; 

Lord Crist, that thou se, per te sit in hiis medicina ! 

Infirmus moritur, thah lechcraft ligge bysyde j 

Vivus decipitur, nis non that her shal abyde. 

Tels plusours troverez, qui de te plurima prendrount; 

Au dreyn bien verrez, quod nullam rem tibi rendrount. 

Esto pacificus, so myh thou welde thy wylle j 

Also veridicus, ant stond pro tempore stille. 

Pees seit en tere, per te, Ueus, alma potest as ! 

Defendez guere, ne nos invadat egestas. 

God Lord Almyhty, da pacem, Christe benigne ! 

Thou const al dyhty, fac ne pereamus in igne ! 

TRANSLATION. 

When a man has to speak, let him consider what words he utters ; 

he ought to pay attention to them, lest he appear a fool. 
When any one speaks, unless reason rest therein, 

he is laughed at, and so he shall gain little. 
In holy church there are often many who hold advanced situa- 
tions ; 
some are wise, many are inferior. 
When a man may do most, then he exhibits his will, 

in gifts also, if he will he gives thee presents. 
Do a kindness to an ungrateful man, and afterwards he will scarce- 
ly look at you ; 
he will not even give you milk for good wine, nor will he make 
you any return. 



286 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

Take care of thy intellect, as of a thing which is worth more than 
thy house ; 
although thou be moody, strength is nothing without reason. 
Law lies down over all, false fraud deceives everywhere ; 

and there is but little love, because people conduct themselves 
wickedly. 
Woe walks wide, since anger moves those who are powerful ; 

right can not ride, because it goes to the ignorant. 
Now that fraud is alive, law will not dwell in the land ; 

and since the matter is in that position, right may not easily 
stand. 
The false man breaks his promise, although he say to thee, " thou 

shalt have it." 
He will scarcely give an old glove, . . . thou shalt afterwards 

weep. 
Mine and thine are two, which break the love of the people ; 

these two for us will cause frequent grief. 
Treason injures, and reason is given to few; 

reason makes sure, while treason confounds all things. 
Peace may not well be, while it stands by two names ; 

Lord Christ, do thou look to it, through thee may there be a 
medicine for these things ! 
The sick man dies, although the art of medicine lie by his side ; 
the living man is deceived, there is none who shall abide 
here. 
You will find many such as will take very much from you ; 

in the end you will see well, that they will return you noth- 
ing. 
Be pacific, so mayest thou possess thy will ; 

also a teller of truth, and stand for the time still. 
May there be peace in the land, through thee, God, kind power ! 

forbid war, lest want invade us. 
Good Lord Almighty, give peace, O benignant Christ ! 

Thou canst do all things, hinder us from perishing in the fire ! 



Statute of Edward III, a. d. 1362, 

Authorizing Pleas to be Pleaded in English and Enrolled in Latin. 

Item pur ce qe monstre est sovent foitz au Roi par Prelatz, 
Dues, Counts, Barons et tout la communalte, les grantz meschiefs 
qe sont advenuz as plusours du realme, de ce qe les leyes custumes 
& estatuz du dit realme ne sont pas conuz communement en 
mesme le realme par cause qils sont pledez, monstrez, & juggez 
en la lange Franceis qest trop desconue en le dit realme, issint qe 
les gentz qe pledent ou sont empledez en les courtz le Roi, et les 
courtz d'autres, nont entendement ne connaisance de ce qest 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 287 

dit pur eulx ne coutre eulx par lour sergeantz & autres pledours ; 
& qe reasonablement lesdites leyes & custumes serront le plus 
tost apris, & conuz, & mieultz entenduz en la lange usee en le dit 
realme, & par tant chescun du dit realme se purroit mieultz gov- 
erner sanz faire offense a la leye, & le mieultz garder, sauver, & 
defendre ses heritages et possessions : & en diverses regions & 
paiis, ou le Roi, les nobles, et autres du dit realme ont este, est 
bon governement & plein droit fait a chescun, par cause qe lour 
leyes & custumes sont apris & usez en la lange du paiis ; le Roi 
desirant le bon governement & tranquillite de son poeple, & de 
ouster & eschure les maulx & meschiefs qe sont advenuz & pur- 
ront avenir en ceste partie, ad, pur les causes susdites, ordeigne 
et establi, del assent avant dit, qe toutes plees qe serront a pleder 
en ses courtz queconqes, devant les justicez queconqes, ou en ses 
autres places, ou devant ses autres ministres queconqes, ou en les 
courtz & places des autres seignurs queconqes, deinz le realme, 
soient pledez, monstretz, defenduz, responduz, debatuz, & juggez, 
en la lange Engleise et qils soient entreez & enroullez en Latin, & 
qe les leyes & custumes du dit realme, termes & processes, soient 
tenuz & gardez come ils sont, & ont este, avant ces heures ; et qe 
per les aunciens termes & formes de counter nul homme soit per- 
dant, issint qe la matiere del action soit pleinement monstre en 
la demonstrance & en le brief. Et est acorde, de lassent avant 
dit, qe cestes ordeignances & estatuz de pleder commencent & 
tiegnent lieu al quinzieme seint Hiller' prochein avenir. 

TRANSLATION. 

Item because it has been often shewn to the king by the prel- 
ates, dukes, earls, barons, and all the commonalty, of the great 
mischiefs which have happened to divers of the realm, because 
the laws, customs, and statutes of this realm be not commonly 
known in the same realm, for that they be pleaded, shewn, and 
judged in the French tongue, which is much unknown in the said 
realm, so that the people which do implead, or be impleaded, in 
the king's court and in the courts of others, have no knowledge 
nor understanding of that which is said for them, or against them, 
by their sergeants and other pleaders ; and that reasonably the 
said laws and customs the rather shall be perceived and known, 
and better understood in the tongue used in the said realm, and 
by so much every man of the said realm may the better govern 
himself without offending the law, and the better keep, save, and 
defend, his heritage and possessions; and in divers regions and 
countries where the king, the nobles, and others of the said 
realm have been, good governance and full right is done to every 
person, because that their laws and customs be learned and used 
in the tongue used in the country ; the king, desiring the good 
governance and tranquillity of his people, and to put out and 



288 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

eschew the harms and mischiefs which do, or may happen in this 
behalf by the occasions aforesaid, hath ordained and stablished, 
by the assent aforesaid, that all pleas which shall be pleaded in 
any courts whatsoever, before any of his justices whatsoever, or 
in his other places, or before any of his other ministers whatso- 
ever, or in the courts and places of any other lords whatsoever 
within the realm, shall be pleaded, shewn, defended, answered, 
debated, and judged in the English tongue, and that they be en- 
tered and inrolled in Latin; and that the laws and customs of 
the said realm, terms, and processes be holden and kept as they 
be and have been before this time ; and that by the ancient terms 
and forms of the declarations no man be prejudiced, so that the 
matter of the action be fully shewn in the declaration and in the 
writ. And it is accorded, by the assent aforesaid, that this ordi- 
nance and statute of pleading begin and hold place at the fifteenth 
St. Hillary next coming. 



John Gower. 

This poet was born about the year 1320, and died in 1402. He was a con- 
temporary and intimate friend of Chaucer, with whom he shares the appellation 
of " Father of English Poetry." Gower wrote equally well in French and Eng- 
lish, and some pretend that he was even more elegant and more poetical in his 
French works than in those which he composed in his native tongue. In fact, 
his first compositions were in French, and consist of a large number of ballads, 
which are truly charming, and it is doubtful whether the French poets of his 
time have written anything superior of the kind. His versification is always 
harmonious, and his language clear and elegant ; while the wisdom of his re- 
marks, and the solidity of his reflections, prove him to have been a man of good 
sense. One of his works, called Speculum Meditantis, terminates with the fol- 
lowing lines, in which he, with too much modesty, apologizes for writing in 
French, which language he seems to consider as universal : 

Al'universite de tout le monde 
Johan Gower ceste ballade envoie ; 
et si jeo nai de francois la faconde, 
pardonnetz moi si jeo de ceo forsvoie ; 
jeo suis Englois ; si quier par ceste voie 
estre excuse. 

The following is one of his ballads, written about the year 1370: 
LE JOLI MOIS DE MAI. 

Pour comparer ce jolif temps de Maij. 

jeo le dirrai semblable a Paradis, 

car lors chantoit et merle et papegai ; 

les champs sont verts, les herbes sont floris, 

lors est Nature dame du pays 

dont Venus poignt l'amant a tiel assai. 

Qencontre amour nest qui poet dire Nat. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 289 

Quant tout ceo voi, et que jeo penserai 
coment Nature ad tout le mond suspris, 
dont pour le temps se fait minote et gai, 
et jeo des autres suis souvent horspris, 
com al qui sanz amie est vrais amis, 
nest pas mervaile lors si jeo mesmai. 

Qencontre amour nest qui poet dire Nat. 

En lieu de rose, urtie cuillerai, 

dont mes chapeals ferrai par tiel devis 

qe tout ivie et confort ieo lerrai, 

si celle soule en qui iai mon coer mis, 

selonc le point qe iai sovent requis, 

ne deigne alegger les grief mals qe iai, 

Qencontre amour nest qui poet dire Nat. 

Pour pite querre $t pourchacer intris, 
va ten balade ou ieo tenvoierai, 
qoro en certain ieo Iai tresbien apris, 

Qencontre amour nest qui poet dire Nat. 



Peter of Langtoft, 

A canon of the priory of St. Augustin of Bridlington in Yorkshire, has left 
us many works in French verse. He was an Englishman, and lived toward the 
end of the fourteenth century, when English had become a general medium 
of communication, which accounts for the truly barbarous French of the author, 
whose language is often so obscure as to be hardly intelligible. It is impossi- 
ble to say what prosody he had studied, as he makes Alexandrines of any length, 
and writes without any apparent rule, principle, or taste, as will be seen in the 
following lines, with which he opens his Hystoire des Bretons. As a historical 
guide, his work is of no value whatsoever, and quoted here only to show the 
degeneracy of the Anglo-Norman French as compared with the Continental 
French of the same period : 

Deus 1 le tot 8 puissant ke 3 ceel 4 e terre crea 
Adam nostre pere home 5 de terre fourma; 6 
naturanmant purvist 7 quant il ordina 8 
ke home de terre venuz 9 en terre rentira. 10 
Cil 11 Deu 13 ly 13 beneye 14 ke ben 15 escotera 16 
coment Endeterre primes 17 comensa, 18 
e pur quei "* primes Bretagne home 20 l'appela, 
quant 2 * Troye par bataille jadis fu 23 destrute, 23 
e li 24 Rai 25 Priamus fu tuez 36 en la lute. 37 



1, Dieu. 2, tout. 3, qui. 4, ciel. 5, homme. 6, forma. 7, pourvit. 8, 

ordonna. 9, venu. 10, rentrera. 11, ce. 12, Dieu. 13, le. 14, benisse. 15, 

bien. 16, ecoutera. 17, d'abord. 18, commenca. 19, pourquoi. 20, on. 21, 
quand. 22, fut. 23, detruite. 24, le. 25, roi. 26, tue\ 27, lutte. 



290 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

Proverbs. 

The following Norman proverbs, probably imported 
at an early period from Normandy, and freely translated, 
are still in use in English : 

Ki n'aime son mestier 
Ne son mestier lui. 
He who dislikes his business, is disliked by his business. 

Ki de fer velt ouvrer 
Si l'atende a chaufer. 
Strike while the iron is hot. 

Tilit voir ne sont a savoir. 
The truth is not always to be spoken. 

A chescun oysel 
Son nye li semble bel. 
Every bird likes his own nest. 

A tart ferme Tom Testable, quant le cheval est perduz. 
// is too late to shut the stable when the horse is gone. 

De debles vint, a debles irra. 
The devil will take his oivn. 

De juvene papelard veil deable. 
Young hypocrite, old devil. 

Ki me eyme, eym mon chen. 
Love me, love my dog. 

Ki tost done, deuz foiz done. 
He who gives quickly, gives twice. 

Tant va le pot al ewe q'il brise. 
The pitcher which goes often to the well, will come home broken 
at last. 

Several English forms and expressions, now obsolete 
in France, are of French derivation. Even the term 
" How do you do ? " is of French origin. 

Lors li dist la dame : Comment 

Le faites vous, biau tres doux sire ? — Roman de Coucy, v, 3490. 

Et dist : chiere amie, comment 

Le faites vous? nel'celez pas. — Idem., v, 5710. 

Comment Gerars li biaus le fait. — La Violette, p. 40. 

Adonc le due Richard vint a luy, et luy demanda comme il le 
faisait.- — Chron. de Norm., printed at Rouen, a. d. 1487. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 291 

Will of a Gentleman of Yorkshire, 

At the end of the Fourteenth Century. 

En le noune 1 de Dieu, et de notre Dame Saunte Marie, et en 
noun de teuz 2 lez sauntez 3 de Paradyse, Amen. Moi Brian de 
Stapylton devise 4 m'alme 5 a Dieu et a notre Dame Saunte Marie, 
et a touz lez Sauntz de Paradyse, et mon chautiff 7 corps d'estre 
enterre en la Priourie de le Parke decoste 8 ma compaigne, 9 que 
Dieu l'assoille, 10 et sur mon corps seit 11 un drape de blew 2 saye ; 13 
et ma volunte est au l'aide de Dieu d'avoire un herce ov 14 synke 15 
tapirs, chescun 16 tapir de synk livres, et tresze 17 hommes vestuz 18 
en bluw 12 ov tresze torchez, de queux 19 tresze torchez, si ne 
saiount 20 degastez, 21 jeo voile 22 que quatre demore 23 a le dit 
Priorie. 

Item jeo devyse que j'ay un homme en mes armes et ma 
hewme 24 ene 25 sa teste, 26 et quy soit bien monte et un homme de 
bon entaille 27 de qil condicon que y sort. 

Item jeo devyse que touz ceaux 28 qui a moy appendent meig- 
nialx 29 en ma maison, soient vestuz en bluw a mes costagez. 30 
Et a touz les poores qils veignent 31 le jour de mon enterment 
jeo devise et voile que chescun ait un denier en ovre 32 de charr- 
te, 33 et en aide de ma chitiffe 34 alme, et jeo voile que les sires mes 
compaignons, mes aliez 35 et mes voiseignez, 36 qui volliont 37 venir 
de lour 38 bone gre prier pour moy et pour faire honour a mon 
chettife corps qi pene 39 ne vault, 40 jeo oille 41 et chargez mes exe- 
cutour que y soient mesme eel jour 42 bien a eise 43 et q'il eient 44 
a boiere 45 asseth, 46 et a cest 47 ma volunte parfournir 48 jeo devise 
ci 49 marcae 50 ove Restore 51 de maison taunke juiste seit. 



1, nom. 2, tous. 3, saints. 4, je dispose par testament. 5, mon ame. 
7, chetif. 8, a. cote de. 9, compagne. 10, l'absolve. 11, soit. 12, bleu. 13, 
justaucorps. 14, avec. 15, cinq, cierges. 16, chaque. 17, treize. 18, 
vetus. 19, desquelles. 20, soient. 21, consumees. 22, desire. 23, demeu- 
rent. 24, heaume. 25, sur. 26, t£te. 27, qui a la faculte de succeder a un 
fief conditionnel. 28, ceux. 29, qui sont attaches a ma maison. 30, depenses. 
pauvres. 31, viennent. 32, ceuvre. 33, charite. 34, chetif. 35, allies. 36, 
voisins. 37, veulent. 38, leur. 39, peine. 40, vaut. 41, desire. 42, ce jour- 
la. 43, aise. 44, aient. 45, boire. 46, assez. 47, cette. 48, remplir. 49, 
six. 50, marcs. 51, provisions. 



292 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



CHAPTER IX. 

FUSION OF ANGLO-NORMAN FRENCH AND ANGLO-SAXON 

ENGLISH. 

From the Norman conquest to the end of the reign of 
the seventh Norman sovereign, King John, is almost ex- 
actly a century and a half. The victory of Hastings was 
gained on the 14th of October, 1066, and John died on the 
19th of October, 12 16. What was the history of the ver- 
nacular language of England during that period is a ques- 
tion which, in the absence of all records referring to the 
matter, can only be answered, if indeed it can be an- 
swered at all, from an examination of such compositions 
of the time in the native tongue as have come down to us. 

The principal literature produced in England during 
this entire period was in the French and Latin languages. 
In the latter were written most works on subjects of the- 
ology, philosophy, and history ; in the former, most of 
those intended to amuse as well as to instruct, and ad- 
dressed less to professional readers than to the court and 
the upper classes of Norman society, by whom they were 
seldom actually read, or even intended to be read, but only- 
listened to while being recited or chanted by others. It 
is, however, impossible to determine whether the native 
English people understood the new language sufficiently 
to enjoy these songs or recitals ; it is most probable that 
some of them soon mastered the imported tongue, while 
others, no doubt, remained for ever ignorant of it. But 
at all events, it was this French literature that for more 
than a century took the place of the old vernacular litera- 
ture entirely. The employment of the Latin language in 
writing by monks, the secular clergy, and all persons of 
education, was universal not only in England, but through- 
out western Christendom, and just as much so after the 
conquest as before. But it was quite otherwise with the 
writing of French ; that was altogether a new idea in Eng- 
land, and was indeed very unusual in France itself, where, 
up to the eleventh century, it had not been very exten- 
sively used yet for literary purposes. The great mass of 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 293 

the oldest French literature that has been preserved was 
produced in England, or, at any rate, in the dominions of 
the king of England in the twelfth century. 

To whatever portion of society in England an acquaint- 
ance with this French literature was confined, it is evident 
that it was for some time after the conquest the only lit- 
erature of the day that, without addressing itself exclu- 
sively to the learned classes, still demanded some measure 
of cultivation in its readers or auditors, as well as in its 
authors. It was, in fact, the only popular literature that 
was not adapted to the mere populace. We might infer 
this even from the fact that, if any other ever existed, it 
has mostly perished. The various metrical chronicles, 
romances, and other compositions in the French tongue, 
a good many of which are still extant, are very nearly the 
only literary works which have come down to us from 
this age. And, while the mass of this literature that has 
been preserved is very considerable, we have distinct 
traces of much more which is now lost. 

" How the French language should have acquired the 
position which it thus appears to have held in England 
for some time after the conquest is easily explained. The 
advantage which it derived from being the language of 
the court, of the entire body of the nobility, and of the 
opulent and influential classes generally, is obvious. This 
not only gave it the prestige and attraction of what we 
now call fashion, but, in the circumstances to which the 
country was reduced, would very speedily make it the 
only language in which any kind of regular or grammati- 
cal training could be obtained. With the native popula- 
tion almost everywhere deprived of its natural leaders, 
the old landed proprietary of its own blood, it can not be 
supposed that schools in which the reading and writing 
of the vernacular tongue was taught could continue to 
subsist. This has been pointed out already. But what 
we may call the social cause, or that arising out of the 
relative conditions of the two races, was probably assisted 
by another which has not been so much attended to. The 
languages themselves did not compete upon fair terms. 
The French would have in the general estimation a decided 
advantage for the purposes of literature over the English. 
The latter was held universally to be merely a barbarous 
form of speech, claiming kindred with nothing except the 
other half-articulate dialects of the woods, hardly one of 
which had ever known what it was to have any acquaint- 



294 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

ance with letters, or was conceived even by those who 
spoke it to be fit to be used in writing except on the most 
vulgar occasions, or where anything like either dignity or 
precision of expression was of no importance ; the former, 
although somewhat soiled and disfigured by ill usage re- 
ceived at the hands of the uneducated multitude, and also 
only recently much employed in formal or artistic elo- 
quence, could still boast the most honorable of all pedi- 
grees as a daughter of the Latin, and was thus besides al- 
lied to the popular speech of every more civilized province 
of western Christendom. The very name by which it 
had been known when it first attracted attention with ref- 
erence to its literary capabilities was the Rustic Latin — 
Lingua Romana Rustica. Even without being favored by 
circumstances, as it was in the present case, a tongue hav- 
ing these intrinsic recommendations would not have been 
easily worsted, in a contest for the preference as the organ 
of fashionable literature, by such a competitor as the un- 
known and unconnected English." 1 

The national tongue possessed, however, one great ad- 
vantage with which it was impossible for the other to 
cope. This was the fact of its being the speech of the 
great body of the people ; and as these far outnumbered 
the foreign population, so it was the English tongue which 
in course of time absorbed the Norman idiom, and not the 
Norman which absorbed the English. That in the process 
of assimilation the original form of language underwent 
great alteration there can be no doubt ; that in the storm 
of national calamity the language itself ceased almost en- 
tirely to be either written or read is equally certain ; but 
it remained the people's speech none the less, and that fact 
alone was sufficient to preserve the general character of 
the language, through all its vicissitudes, as we shall find 
it when, after a time, it began again to be employed in 
writing, although in an altered form. 

The nature of the alterations which distinguished the 
written English, on its reappearance after the Norman 
conquest is twofold, and its transformation comprises two 
distinct processes, namely, i, the infusion of foreign words 
and phrases ; and, 2, the loss of inflexions and the general 
breakup of grammatical forms ; and these, although going 
on simultaneously, require for the sake of clearness to be 
examined each by itself separately. 

1 G. L. Craik, Manual of English Literature. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



295 



I. Infusion of Norman Words and Phrases into the Native 

Saxon, 

The introduction of Norman words into the English 
vocabulary commenced many years before the conquest, 
as we have seen, and according to an English authority, 1 
their number amounted at least to one hundred and fifty 
in the reign of Edward the Confessor. The account 
which a contemporary historian gives of this matter is, as 
has been explained elsewhere, that Edward, having been 
educated at the court of his uncle, Duke Richard II, and 
having resided in Normandy many years as a friend and 
relative of Duke William, had become almost a French- 
man ; that upon his return from France, and his accession 
to the throne of England in 1043, ne brought over with him 
a number of Normans whom he promoted to the highest 
dignities ; that, under the influence of the king and his 
Norman favorites, many people began to lay aside their 
English fashions and to imitate the manners of the French, 
and that not only the nobility, but all who laid claim to 
education and good breeding commenced to speak French 
as an acknowledged mark of gentility. 

The fashion, however, of speaking French, having been 
adopted only in compliance with the caprice of the reign- 
ing prince, would not probably have spread very far or 
lasted very long ; but at the changes which followed soon 
after, in 1066, the language of the Norman conqueror be- 
came interwoven with the new political system, and the 
various establishments which were made for the support 
and security of the latter, all contributed to the diffusion 
and permanency of the former. To begin with the court. 
If we consider that the king himself, the chief officers of 
state, and by far the greater part of the nobility were all 
Normans, and could probably speak no language but their 
own, it is evident that French was the ordinary language 
of the court. The few Saxons who for some time were 
admitted there 2 must have had the greatest inducements 
to acquire the language, if they did not speak it already, 
not merely for the sake of understanding and answering 
insignificant questions in the circle, but because in that 
age affairs of the greatest importance were publicly trans- 

1 P. L. Kington Oliphant, Sources of Standard English, page 240. 

8 After the death of Edwin, in 1070, we do not read of any Saxon earl ex- 
cept Waltheof, and he was executed for misprision of treason about three years 
after. — Ordericus Vitalis, I, iv, p. 536. 



296 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

acted in the king's court ; and there they might be called 
upon to answer for what little property was left to them, 
and even for their lives. Thus, in an ecclesiastical synod, 
held in the presence of the king, in 1072, the venerable 
Bishop of Worcester, Wulstan, was obliged to defend the 
rights of his see by an interpreter, " a monk of very little 
eloquence/' says the historian, " but who had a smattering 
of the Norman language," 1 and it was only his " holy sim- 
plicity," as the same historian calls it, 2 which seems to 
have preserved him from the degradation which almost 
all the other English prelates underwent. This consider- 
ation, however, was only of temporary avail, for in 1095 
another synod formally decreed to depose him as being 
"an idiot who did not know French." 3 

If we consider further that the great barons, to whom 
William distributed a large share of his conquests, when 
released from their attendance at the king's court, retired 
to courts of their own, where they in their turn were sur- 
rounded by a numerous train of vassals, chiefly their own 
countrymen, we may be sure that the French language 
traveled with them into the most distant provinces, and 
was used by them, not only in their common conversation, 
but in civil contracts, their judicial proceedings, and even 
in the promulgation of their laws. 4 The many churches 
and castles which the Normans built in different parts of 
the island must also have contributed very much to the 
propagation of the French language among the vast num- 
ber of native laborers and mechanics employed in the 
work, as it may be well supposed that the foreigners in 
charge, architects, engineers, and their chief workmen and 
overseers, being unable to speak English, would carry on 
all their transactions in their own language. 5 

But the great alteration which, from political motives, 
was made in the state of the clergy at that time, probably 
operated more efficaciously than any other cause to give 
the French language a deep root in England. The Con- 

1 Ita data benedictione Monacho minimae facundiae viro, sed Normannicae 
linguae sciolo, rem perorans obtinuit. — William of Malmesbury I, iii, p. 118. 

2 Hie sancta semplicitas beati Vulstani, etc. — Ibid. 

3 Quasi homo idiota, qui linguam Gallicanum non noverat, nee regiis con- 
siliis interesse poterat, ipso Rege consentiente et hoc dictante decernitur de- 
ponendus. — Matthias Paris, ad ann. 

4 The ancient earls had a power of legislation within their counties. 

6 Custodes in castellis strenuos viros ex Gallis collocavit, et opulenta bene- 
ficia, pro quibus labores et pericula libenter tolerarent distribuit. — Ordericus 
Vitalis, I, iv, p. 506. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



297 



queror seems to have been fully aware of the strength 
which the new government would derive from a clergy 
more closely attached to himself by a community of inter- 
ests than the native English were likely to be. Accord- 
ingly, from the beginning of his reign, all ecclesiastical 
preferments, as fast as they became vacant, were given to 
his Norman chaplains ; and, not content with availing 
himself of the ordinary course of succession, he contrived, 
upon various charges of real or pretended irregularities, 
to remove several of the English 'bishops and abbots, 
whose places were immediately supplied by foreigners. 
In short, in the space of a very few years, all the sees of 
England were filled with Normans, and the greater part 
of the abbeys in the kingdom were under governors of 
the same nationality. 

It must not be supposed, however, as has been often 
repeated, that William so hated the language of the island 
that he determined to eradicate it, and to introduce the 
Norman in its place ; 1 on the contrary, we know from a 
contemporary historian that he took great pains himself 
to acquire the language of his subjects. 2 In general a 
great deal too much has been attributed to the Conqueror, 
and many historians have ascribed to particular parts of 
his policy effects directly opposite to those which they 
were naturally calculated to produce. In fact, he must 
have remembered that the Franks, who conquered Gaul, 
and his own ancestors, who settled in Neustria, had not 
been able to substitute the Teutonic or Scandinavian for 
the Romance language in their dominions ; or, if his 
knowledge of history did not go back so far, he must 
have known that his kinsmen who subdued Naples and 
Sicily did not aim at establishing their language in the 
conquered territory; that the measure was not at all 
necessary to the establishment of his power ; and that 
such an attempt is in all cases no less impracticable than 
absurd, because the patient indocility of the multitude 

1 This supposition has been founded on a passage of Robert Holcot, in 
which he says that the Conqueror, " deliberavit quomodo linguam Saxonicam 
posset destruere, et Angliam et Normanniam in idiomate concordare." But 
Holcot wrote only in the fourteenth century, whereas none of the earlier his- 
torians impute to the king such a project. An extract of a contemporary, con- 
tained in the following note, teaches us quite the contrary. 

9 Anglicam locutionem plerumque sategit ediscere : ut sine interprete que- 
relam subjectse legis posset intelligere, et scita rectitudinis unicuique (prout 
ratio dictaret) affectuose depromere. Ast a perceptione hujusmodi durior setas 
ilium compescebat, et tumultus multimodarum occupationum ad alia necessario 
adtrahebat. — Orderic. Vital., I, iv, 
21 



298 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

must ultimately triumph over the caprice and tyranny of 
their armed preceptors. But, having conquered a king- 
dom, and being determined to retain his conquest, he in- 
troduced a code of laws which placed his power on a mili- 
tary basis ; and he introduced it in the language in which 
it was to become familiar to that army to which he looked 
for his security. By requiring the study of French in the 
schools, he gave his subjects the means of understanding 
the laws which he expected them to obey. He enforced 
this perhaps tyrannically and harshly ; but it is in no way 
proved that he acted with the view of making French the 
universal language of his subjects, or that he expected the 
children, on their return from school, to talk French in 
their own homes ; he might with equal wisdom have 
supposed that they would converse in Latin, which they 
had an opportunity of learning in the same schools. 

Still, whatever may have been the ultimate effects of 
the policy of William and his immediate successors on 
the degeneracy of the native English, it continued for a 
long time to maintain its ground, was generally spoken, 
and even employed in a few works of information for at 
least a century after the Norman conquest. This is in- 
contestably proved by what is commonly called the " An- 
glo-Saxon Chronicle," which is continued to the death of 
Stephen, A. D. 11 54, and in the same language. In the 
mean time, we may trace in this very document, though 
in a small degree, the influence of the Norman contact. 
Besides the neglect of several grammatical rules, French 
words, now and then, obtrude themselves, especially in 
the latter pages of this chronicle. Thus we find in — 

a. d. 1086. Se cing .... dubbade 1 his sunn Henric to ridere. 
a. d. 1 1 12. Rotbert de Bselesme he let niman and on pristine don. 
a. d. 1 135. Pais he makede vor men and dser .... Balduin 

accordede. 
a. d. 1 137. He hadde get his tresor .... canceler .... pri- 

sun .... iustise .... martyrs .... carited .... 

rentes .... privileges .... miracles. 
a. d. 1 138. He dide god iustise and makede pais. 
A. d. 1 140. Candles .... mprisun and quarter es .... cuntes- 

se in Anjou .... Alle sweren the pais to halden. 
a. d. 1 154. The eorl heold micel curt .... Wilhelm de Wat- 

tenile god clerc and god man. . . . The cing was 

underfangen mid micel procession. 

1 Dubbade, according to Kemble, is the French verb adouber in the weak 
Anglo-Saxon form. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 299 

Truly, these are but rare instances, but we must re- 
member that Peterborough, where this chronicle was 
compiled, was quite an English monastery ; its endow- 
ments and its abbot were Saxon ; and the political spirit 
it breathes in some passages is that of the indignant sub- 
jects of the Norman usurpers. If its last compilers, there- 
fore, gave way to some innovations of language, we may 
presume that these prevailed more extensively in places 
less secluded, and especially in London. 1 

It would be difficult to fix the exact date of the 
commencement of the amalgamation of the Norman and 
Saxon idioms, but, from causes explained above, it evi- 
dently began soon after the conquest, and formed by de- 
grees a jargon which was, for the first century at least, 
not applicable to any literary purpose, but only employed 
for common intercourse between the conquerors and the 
conquered. Without any precise data as regards the 
composition of this mixture, the author of " The Sources 
of Standard English" contrives, nevertheless, to give us a 
specimen of what it may have been, founded on docu- 
ments which have come down to us. " We may imagine," 
he says, " a cavalcade of the new aristocracy of England, 
ladies and knights, men who perhaps fought at Hastings 
in their youth ; these alight from their steeds at the door 
of one of the churches that have lately arisen throughout 
the land in a style unknown to Earl Godwin. The riders 
are accosted by a crowd of beggars and bedesmen, who 
put forth all their little stock of French : ' Lady Countess, 
clad in ermine and sabeline, look from your palfrey. Be 
large of your treasure to the poor and feeble ; of your char- 
ity bestow } 7 our riches on us rather than on jogelours. We 
will put up our orisons for you, after the manere and cus- 
toms of our religion. For Christ's passion, ease our poverty 
in some measure ; that is the best penance, as your chaplain 
in his sermons says. By all the Confessors, Patriarchs, and 
Virgins, show us mercy.' Another speech would run thus : 
* Worthy Barons, you have honor at court, speak for my 
son in prison. Let him have justice ; he is no robber or 
lecher. The sergeants took him in the market', these catch- 
poles have wrought him sore miseise. So may Christ ac- 
cord you peace at the day of livreison ! ' Not one of these 
forty French words were in English use before the battle 
of Hastings ; but we find every one of them set down in 

1 For a description of this remarkable monument of the Anglo-Saxon lan- 
guage, see pages 381-383. 



300 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

writing within a century after that date, so common had 
they then become in English mouths." 1 

One of the causes which favored the introduction of 
foreign words into the English vocabulary, and which 
may be fittingly also noticed here, was that produced by 
the change which the Norman conquest wrought in the 
English system of nomenclature in reference to proper 
names. " In this matter of nomenclature," remarks Dr. 
Freeman, " that is to say, in that part of our vocabulary 
which consists of proper names, the Norman conquest not 
only wrought a great and more lasting change than it did 
in anything else, but it wrought a more immediate change. 
The cause is plain. To adopt a foreign name is still easier 
than to adopt a foreign word ; and of all kinds of words, 
proper names are those which are most thoroughly under 
the dominion of fashion. In all times and places, the 
names of kings and princes find their way among all 
classes of their subjects, and it is also thought to be a 
point of civility to give the godchild the name of his god- 
father. The change began at once. The Norman names 
became the fashion. The Englishman whose child was 
held at the font by a Norman gossip, the Englishman who 
lived on friendly terms with his Norman lord or his Nor- 
man neighbor, nay, the Englishman who simply thought 
it fine to call his children after the reigning king and 
queen, cast aside his own name and the names of his 
parents, to give his sons and daughters names after the 
new foreign pattern. When this fashion once set in, it 
took root. The Norman names gradually spread them- 
selves through all classes, till even a villain was more 
commonly called by a Norman than by an English name. 
The great mass of the English names went out of use, a 
few only excepted. 2 

Although vanity and frivolity may have had some- 
thing to do with this remarkable change in particular in- 
stances, it is hardly probable that any such worthless 
motives could have prevailed with the great bulk of 
the nation, and have induced a sad and oppressed people 
to leave off suddenly names that were dear to them by na- 

1 They may be found in the Saxon Chronicle and in the First Series of 
Homilies. — Early English Text Society ; Standard English, p. 218. 

2 History of the Norman Conquest, p. 559. Among women the loss of Eng- 
lish names is even more complete than among men. Indeed, Edith and Emma 
are about all that remain in common use of the former, and Alfred, Edgar, Ed- 
mund, Edward, Edwin, and Egbert of the latter. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



301 



tional and family remembrances, in order to adopt those 
of a detested foreign oppressor. The cause of such a 
sweeping- and universal change must be sought, it seems, 
in some far more powerful influence — probably that of the 
Norman clergy, who, introducing the continental custom, 
baptized the children with the names of patron saints. 
This custom, moreover, was not new in England, having 
been practiced to a great extent before the conquest 
among native churchmen, who exchanged their Saxon 
names for scriptural and saintly names at their ordina- 
tion or monastic profession. Still the change was an 
important one, and may have had even a political bear- 
ing in breaking up, also, this connection with former 
traditions. 

Besides this change in personal nomenclature, this in- 
troduction of a new set of Christian names, the Norman 
conquest also brought with it the novelty of family no- 
menclature, that is to say, the use of hereditary surnames. 
Until that time " one person, one name " was the rule 
throughout all England, even as in the early state of so- 
ciety, Abraham and Moses among the Jews, Achilles and 
Ulysses among the Greeks, were known to their respective 
contemporaries by the single names by which they are 
mentioned in Holy Writ, and in the poetry of Homer. 
But even early in the eleventh century, long before the 
invasion, it had become the practice among the members 
of the great Norman houses to take surnames, sometimes 
territorial, sometimes patronymic, which in course of 
time became hereditary. Thus, when Robert of Bruce 
and William of Percy found themselves the possessors of 
far greater estates in England than in Normandy, and 
their main interests were no longer Norman but English, 
and even when their descendants had lost their original 
connection with the place of Bruce or Percy, and the 
name no longer suggested the thought of the place, Bruce 
and Percy remained the hereditary surnames of their fami- 
lies. Many such English family names are found on the 
Roll of Battel Abbey. There was nothing like this in Eng- 
land before the conquest, but ever since then the practice 
has prevailed among English land-owners of taking their 
hereditary surnames from their estates in England. 

Those who, not being possessed of any landed prop- 
erty, had no such surname to take, were in the habit of 
taking their father's name instead, and thus the son of 
John or William became Fitz-John or Fitz-William if he 



302 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

was of Norman ; 1 Johnson or Williamson if of English or 
Danish descent. But even as the territorial, so the patro- 
nymic surname lost its original meaning on becoming he- 
reditary, and thus applied to women as well as to men. It 
may be interesting to notice to what a variety of diminu- 
tives and derivatives this class of English surnames gave 
rise. From Henry or Harry, for instance, with its regular 
derivative Harrison, we have Harris, Herries, Hall, Halket, 
Hal kin ; Haws, Hawes, and Hawkins. Elias produces Ell, 
Ellson, El kin, Elkinson ; Ellice, Ellis, Ellison ; Ellet, Elliott, 
and Elliotson. From David we have not only Davidge and 
Davidson, but also Davy, Davis, Davison; Davies, Dawes, 
Dawson, and Dawkins. From Hugh we have Hughes, Hug- 
gett, Huggins, Hugginson; Hew, Hewson, Hewison, Hewett, 
Hewetson, Hewlet, Hewell, and seemingly, also, Whewell. 
From Nicholas we have Nichols and Nicholson contracted 
into Nixon; also Cole, Colet, Colley, and Collins. From 
Benjamin came the diminutive Benn and its derivative 
Benson. From Gregory, Gregg and Gregson. From Gilbert, 
Gibbs, Gibson, Gibbins, and Gibbon. From Matthew, Mat- 
thews, Mathison, Madison, Matsell, and Mattson. From Simon, 
Sim, Sims, Simmes, Simmons, and Simpson. From Timothy, 
Tim, Timms, Timmings, and Timpson. From Bartholomew, 
Batts, Bates, Bartlett, and Batson. From Richard, in addi- 
tion to Richards and Richardson, Dick, Dickens, Dickinson, 
and also Dix and Dixon. In the same way from Alexan- 
der we have Sanders and Sanderson; from John, Jones and 
Johnson, Jack and Jackson ; from Lawrence, Larry, Larkins, 
and Lawson ; from Thomas-, Thorn, Thorns, Thompson, and 
Thompkins ; from Walter, Watts, Watson, and Wat kins ; and 
from William, Williams, Williamson, Wills, Wilks, Wilkinson, 
Bill, Bilson, Wilson, etc. 

This primitive custom of making the father's Chris- 
tian name the surname of the child, to distinguish him 
from other persons bearing the same appellation, and 
which in course of time and under various influences has 
led, in England, to changes and disguises so curious as to 
be often hardly recognizable, finds its origin in the high- 
est antiquity. Caleb the son of Jephunneh, Joshua the son of 
Nun, are early examples ; so also Icarus the son of Dcedalus, 
Dcedalus the son of Eupalmus ; and it is worthy of observa- 
tion that this primitive practice has descended to modern 
times in such designations as William Fitz-Hugh, Stephen 

1 Fitz, prefixed to Norman names, is a corruption oijils, in Latin filius. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 303 

Isaacson, and the like. Sometimes the adjunct expressed 
the country or profession, or other distinctive character- 
istic of the bearer, as Herodotus of Halicarnassus, Poly- 
cletes the Sculptor, Diogenes the Cynic, Dionysius the Tyrant, 
etc. 

The Romans had a very complete system of nomen- 
clature. The whole commonwealth was divided into 
various clans called gentes, each of which was subdivided 
into several families. Thus in the Gens Cornelia were in- 
cluded the families of the Scipiones, Lentuli, Cethegi, Dola- 
bellce, Cinnce, Syllce, etc. It is doubtful, however, whether 
these families were descended from a common ancestor, 
though they had religious rites in common. To mark the 
different gentes and families, and to distinguish the indi- 
viduals of the same race, they had usually three names, 
viz., the prcenomen, the nomen, and the cognomen. 

The prcenomen denoted the individual, the nomen 
marked the gens, and the cognomen distinguished the fa- 
milia. Thus in Publius Cornelius Scipio, Publius corre- 
sponded to our John, Thomas, William; Cornelius pointed 
out the clan or gens ; and Scipio conveyed the information 
that the individual in question belonged to that particular 
family of the Cornelii which descended from the pious 
Scipio who, from his practice of leading about his aged 
and blind father, thus figuratively became his scipio or 
staff. 

Persons of the highest eminence, particularly military 
commanders, sometimes received a fourth name, or agno- 
men, often commemorative of conquests, and borrowed 
from the proper name of the hostile country, as Coriolanus, 
Africanus, Asiaticus, Germajiicus, etc. In general, only two 
of the names were used — frequently but one. In address- 
ing a person, the prcenomen was generally employed, since 
it was peculiar to citizens, for slaves had no prcenomen. 

Although the Anglo-Saxons had no regular system of 
family nomenclature resembling that of the Romans, or 
that which we now possess, there was nominally among 
them something like an attempt to show derivation and 
family relationship by the use of similar personal names. 
Thus in one family we find in succession, or simultaneous- 
ly, Wigmund, Wighelm, Wigldf Wihstdn; or Beornric,B eorn- 
hedh, Beornhelm. Of the seven sons of ^Ethelfrith, king of 
Northumberland, five bore names compounded with os; 
Oslaf Osldc, Oswald, Oswin, and Oswidu. In the succes- 
sion of the same royal family we find the male names, Os- 



304 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

frith, Oswine, Osric, Osraed, Oswulf, Osbald, and Osbeorht, 
and the female Osthryth; and some of these are repeated 
several times. 

The following genealogical table shows how strongly 
this practice was adhered to by the progeny of Alfred the 
Great : 

ALFRED. 



the 



Eddweard the Elder = Eddgyfu. 



Eddwine. Eddmund I. Eddred. Eddbuth. 

T 



Eddwig. Eddgdi 



Eddweard. Eddgylh. Eddmund. sEthelr&d. 



Eddmund. Eddzoig. Eddgyth. Eddweard. 



Eddmund. Eddiueara. 



Eddgdr-sEtheling. 

In a genealogy of the West Saxon kings we find the 
names of Eadgar-Eadmunding, Eadmund-Eadwarding, Ead- 
ward-Ailf reding, yElfred-Awolfing, etc., of which the ter- 
minative syllable ing, as indicating clan, family, or tribe, 
has been explained elsewhere. 1 

Personal characteristics were also used at an early 
date among the Anglo-Saxons to designate individuals. 
Thus Bede, speaking of the two missionary apostles of 
the old Saxons, says : " As they were both of one devo- 
tion, so they both had one name, for each of them was 
called Hewald, yet with this distinction, taken from the 
color of their hair, that one was styled Black Hewald, and 
the other White Hewald." From this it would appear that 
White, Black, Red, Bald, etc., were then common as second 

1 See page 192. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 305 

or descriptive names, as were also Good, Cunning, Proud, 
and the like. Sometimes, also, they were taken from the 
place of residence, with the particle cet, as Eadmaer at 
Burhham, for instance. The names of Atmere, Atwell, Att- 
wood, Attzvater, Attemore, Attegate, Atter cliff e, Atter bury, 
Updyke, Upton, Underwood, Under/till, and the like are of 
this description. 

The precise period at which such second names be- 
came stationary, or, in other words, began to descend 
hereditarily from father to son, it would at this distance 
of time be impossible to show. Camden says, "about 
the year of our Lord 1000, surnames became to be 
taken up in France ; and in England about the time of the 
conquest, or else a very little before, vnder King Edward 
the Confessor, who was all Frenchified. . . . This will 
seem strange to some Englishmen and Scottishmen, 
whiche, like the Arcadians, thinke their surnames as an- 
tient as the moone, or at the least to reach many an age 
beyond the conquest. But they which thinke it most 
strange (I speake vnder correction), I doubt they will 
hardly finde any surname which descended to posterity 
before that time : neither haue they seene (I feare) any 
deede or donation before the conquest, but subsigned 
with crosses and single names without surnames, in this 
manner : *f« Ego Eadredus confirmaui. *f» Ego Edmundus 
corroboraui. *%* Ego Sigarius conclusi. *%* Ego Olfstanus 
consolidaui," etc. 

However this may be, and whatever may be advanced 
in favor of an earlier adoption of family designations or 
surnames in particular cases, it is certain that the practice 
of making the second name of an individual stationary, 
and transmitting it to descendants, gradually came into 
common use during the eleventh and three following 
centuries. By the middle of the twelfth it began, in the 
estimation of some, to be essential that persons of rank 
should bear some designation in addition to the baptismal 
name. We have an instance of this in the wealthy heiress 
of the powerful baron Fitz-Hamon's making the want of 
a surname in Robert, natural son of King Henry I, an ob- 
jection to his marriage with her. The lady is represented 
as saying : 

It were to me great shame, 

To have a lord withouten his twa name ! 1 

1 Robert of Gloucester. 



306 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

when the monarch, to remedy the defect, gave him the 
surname of Fitz-Roy ; a designation which has been given 
at several subsequent periods to some of the progeny of 
the English kings. 

The practice of borrowing family names from patri- 
monial estates became usual about the commencement of 
the eleventh century, as we have said, in Normandy and 
the contiguous parts of France. Chiefly of this kind are 
the names which appear in the Great Roll of Battel Abbey, 
a list of the principal commanders and companions in 
arms of William the Conqueror. Under the feudal sys- 
tem the great barons assumed as surnames the proper 
names of their seignories ; the knights who held under 
them did the like ; and these in turn were imitated by all 
who possessed a landed estate, however small. Camden 
remarks, that there is not a single village in Normandy 
that has not surnamed some family in England. The 
French names introduced at the conquest may generally 
be known by the prefixes de, du, des, de la, st. or saint, and 
by the suffixes font, ers, fant, bean, age, mont, ard, aux, bois, 
ly, eux, et, val, court, vaux, lay, fort, ot, cliamp, and ville ; 
most of which are component parts of proper names of 
places, as one may convince himself by a glance at the 
map of northern France. 

It would be a great mistake, however, in English per- 
sons bearing names of French origin to conclude, with- 
out further evidence, that they must needs be descended 
from some stalwart Norman who hacked his way to emi- 
nence and fortune through the serried ranks of the Sax- 
ons at Hastings. It should be remembered that, in the 
eight centuries that have elapsed since the conquest, there 
have been numerous settlements of the French in Eng- 
land ; for instance, Queen Isabella of France, the consort 
of Edward II, introduced in her train many personages 
bearing surnames previously unknown in England ; as 
Lo?igckamp, U Ever eux, D'Arcy, Savage, Molineux, D Anvers, 
and others, to say nothing of the various settlements of 
merchants, mechanics, artists, and refugees of all kinds 
who have sought and found, at all times, an " island home " 
in Great Britain. 

A great many surnames occur in Domesday -book. 
Some of these are local, as De Grey, De Vernon, DOily; 
some patronymical, as Richardus filius Gisleberti; and oth- 
ers official or professional, as Gulielmus Camerarius (the 
chamberlain), Radulphus Venator (the hunter), Gisleber- 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 307 

tus Cocus (the cook), etc., etc. " But very many," as Cam- 
den remarks, " occur with their Christian names only, as 
Olaff, Nigellus, Eustachius, Baldricns." It is to be observed 
that those with single names are "noted last in every 
shire, as men of least account," and as sub-tenants. 

Although the practice of adopting hereditary sur- 
names from manors and localities originated in Norman- 
dy, we are not therefore to conclude that every name 
with de prefixed is of Norman origin, for in course of time 
many families of Saxon lineage, upon acquiring wealth, 
copied the example of their conquerors in this particular. 
Often, moreover, this de was of no account whatever, and, 
instead of indicating the ownership of great landed es- 
tates, mainly referred to the town or district the person 
originally came from. When found with Dutch or Flem- 
ish names, it is always the definite article corresponding 
to the Norman le added to names, denoting trades and 
business occupations. The original Norman de invaria- 
bly referred to territorial possessions, whether in Eng- 
land or on the Continent. 

In some cases the Normans preferred the surname de- 
rived from their ancient patrimonies in Normandy ; in 
others they substituted one taken from the estate given 
them by the Conqueror and his successors. In a few in- 
stances the particle de or a" is still retained ; but, gen- 
erally speaking, it was dropped from the surnames about 
the time of Henry VI, when the title esquier among the 
heads of families, and gentylman among younger sons, be- 
gan pretty generally to be substituted. Thus, instead of 
John de Alchorne, William de Catesby, etc., the landed gen- 
try wrote themselves, John Alchorne of Alchorne, Esq., 
William Catesby of Catesby, Gent., etc. 

As most people were not distinguished by the posses- 
sion of landed estates, it is interesting to notice the sources 
from which English family names have been generally de- 
rived. 

In the first place, for want of being able to use the 
prefix de in the sense of ownership, it was quite natural 
for people, in order to avoid confusion, to name the place 
they came from. This will account for such names as 
Kentish, Devenish, Cornish, though family names derived 
from counties in the British dominions came generally to 
be used without this termination, as Cheshire, Kent, Corn- 
wall, Devon, Durham, Dorset, Renfrew, Somerset, Montgom- 
ery, etc. The same with surnames derived from towns and 



308 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

cities, as Bath, Hull, Lincoln, Lester, Winchester, Chichester, 
Warwick, Bedford, Carlisle, Hastings, Blackburn, Hampton, 
Htmtingdon, Wells, Poole, Rugby, Grimsby, Halifax, and others 
too numerous to mention. Thousands of English surnames 
are derived from villages and obscure towns, as Battle, 
Barnham, Compton, Arlington, Deane, Clayton, Goring, Heath- 
field, Hartfield, Kingston, Preston, Sutton, Penhurst, Wad- 
hurst, Waldron, etc., etc. Numerous as are the surnames 
thus derived, those borrowed from manors, farms, and 
single houses, are very much more so ; hence, the sur- 
names of local origin in England may be counted by thou- 
sands. Most of them are descriptive, and their meaning 
can be readily understood. 

One woulcl suppose that, when almost every description 
of locality, whether county, town, village, manor, park, 
hill, dale, bridge, river, pond, wood, or green, when every 
imaginable modification of every Christian name had con- 
tributed to the family nomenclature of the English people, 
the few millions of families inhabiting the island would 
have all been supplied with surnames. But such was not 
the case, and having used local names and others describ- 
ing the various features of the land as suitable family 
names, it is but natural that in course of time its products, 
and in fact every natural object, should be used for the 
same purpose. Thus, the following names of trees con- 
stantly occur as family surnames : Alder, Ashe, Aspen, Beech, 
Birch, Box, Cherry, Chestnut, Crabtree, Elmes, Hazel, Hazv- 
thorne, Laurel, Maples, Oakes, Pine, Plumtree, Sickles, Thome, 
and Willows. In addition to these we have the names of 
Almond, Barberry, Bramble, Brier, Beet, Budd, Bean, Broome, 
Clover, Cockle, Damson, Daisy, Feme, Fennel, Flower, Flax, 
Furze, Hempe, Lily, Medlar, Melon, Nutt, Nettle, Peach, Plum, 
Primrose, Rose, Stock, Straw, Sage, Tares, Thistle, Weed, and 
Wood. 

From this to the animals that live in the field is but a 
step, and so we find the names of Bear, Buck, Badger, Bull, 
Bullock, Boar, Beaver, Colt, Deer, Doe, Fox, Fawn, Hart, Hogg, 
Hare, Hound, Lyo?t, Lamb, Otter, Roebuck, Ram, Roe, Setter, 
Steed, Squirrel, Seal, Stagg, and Capel, 1 also used as sur- 
names. 

Surnames derived from birds are full as numerous as 
those from quadrupeds. Thus we have Bird, Blackbird, 

1 Capel is an old word, signifying a strong horse ; hence Chaucer : 
" And gave him copies to his carte." 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 309 

Bunting, Crane, Cock, Crowe, Capon, Drake, Duck, Dove, Daw, 
Egles, Fowle, Finch, Falcon, Grouse, Gander, Goose, Gosling, 
Gull, Goldfinch, Hawk, Heron, Jay, Kite, Linnet, Larke, Mai- 
lard, Nightingale, Peacock, Partridge, Pheasant, Pigeon, Par- 
rot, Raven, Rooke, Ruff, Swan, Sparrow, Swallow, Starling, 
Stock, Swift, Teale, Thrush, Woodcock, Wren. Henshaw, in 
old English Hernshaw, meaning " a young heron," is now 
obsolete. 1 

From fishes we have Bass, Cod, Crabbe, Dolphin, Gud- 
geon, Haddock, Herring, La7nprey, Mullett, Perch, Pilchard, 
Plaice, Pike, Pickerel, Ray, Roach, Sharke, Sturgeon, Salmon, 
Sole, Smelt, Sprat, Seal, Trout, Tench, Whiting, Whale, to 
which we may add Fish and Fisk, the latter being the 
elder form of the same word. 

Minerals, of course, have not been forgotten, and figure 
among English surnames as follows: Amber, Brass, Cris- 
tal, Clay, Coale, Copper, Dymond, Flint, Gold, Silver, Garnett, 
Gravel, Jewell, Sands, Steele, and Stone} 

In addition to all these different classes of surnames, 
derived from Christian names, local names, names of beasts, 
birds, fishes, trees, plants, fruits, flowers, and metals, many, 
and indeed most others, are descriptive of the industrial 
occupations of the original bearer. The practice of using 
such words as family names began at an early date, and 
many of them still survive which were derived from crafts 
that have ceased to exist. Among such are Archer, Fletcher? 
Furbisher, Harper, Larbalestier? Lorimerf Massinger, Pointer, 
Lardner, etc., in French ; Arrowsmith, Billman, Bowman, 
Butts? Crowder? Hawker, Hostler, Pikeman, Stringer, String- 

1 " He don't know a hawk from a handsaw " is a proverb often applied to 
an ignoramus. For handsaw read hernshaw. The saying originally and pri- 
marily referred to ignorance of a favorite sport — that of falconry — when the said 
ignoramus could not discriminate between the hawk and its prey. 

2 Coke has nothing to do with charred coal ; it is the old orthography of Cook : 

" A coke they hadden with hem for the nones 
To boile the chickenes and the marie-bones, 
He coud-e roste and sethe and boile and frie, 
Maken mortrewes and wel bake a pie." — Chaucer, Prologue. 

3 Fletcher, from the French flee he " an arrow," in English " arrowsmith." 

4 Cross-bowman. 

6 A lorimer was " a maker of bits, bridles, and spurs." 
6 Butts, " marks for archery." In the days when 
.... England was but a fling 
Save for the " Crooked Stick " and the " Grey-Goose Wing," 
most parishes had a place set apart for this necessary sport, and the place is still 
indicated in many parishes by the name of " the Butts." A person resident 
near such a spot would very naturally assume the name of "John at the 
Butts." 

n A Crowder or Crowther was one who played upon the crowd, an ancient 



3io ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

fellow, etc., in English. " Touching such as have their 
surnames of occupations," remarks Verstegan, " be they 
French or English names, it is not to be doubted but 
their ancestors have first gotten them by such trades, and 
the children of such parents, being contented to take them 
upon them, their after-coming posterity can hardly avoid 
them, and so in time cometh rightly to be said : 

" From whence comes Smith, all be he knight or squire, 
But from the Smith that forgeth at the fire. 

" Neither can it be disgraceful in any that now live in 
very worshipful estate and reputation that their ancestors 
in former ages have been, by their honest trades of life, 
good and necessary members of the commonwealth, see- 
ing all gentry hath first taken issue from commonalty." 

Some of the most unusual, as well as others of the most 
ordinary, English surnames are compounds of Smith. It 
is rather curious that, although the appellations of the 
blacksmith and the whitesmith, both very common avoca- 
tions, do not occur as surnames, that of brownsmith, an 
obsolete calling, does. The brownsmith of five centuries 
since must have been a person of some consideration, when 
the far-famed brown-bills of the English yeomen struck 
terror into the hearts of their enemies. Nasmyth is prob- 
ably a corruption of "nailsmith." The spearsmiths and 
shoesmiths were respectively makers of spears and of horse- 
shoes. Goldsmiths are numerous every where. Arrowsmith 
is not uncommon, but it must not be confounded with 
Arsmith, meaning in Anglo-Saxon, "a brazier," from ar, 
" brass." Bucksmith is doubtless a corruption of " buckle- 
smith." 1 

In the north of England a sock means a ploughshare ; 
hence " socksmith," curiously corrupted to Sucksmith and 
Sixsmiths. Smith in Gaelic is Gow ; hence M'Gowan is 
Smithson. The Gows were once as numerous in Scotland 
as the Smiths in England, and would be so at this time had 
not many of them, at a very recent date, translated the 
name to Smith? 

stringed instrument, the prototype of the modern violin, called in Welsh crwth, 
and in Irish cruit. Spenser, in his Epithalamion, has — 

" The pipe, the tabor, and the trembling croud" 

1 " Brydel bytters, blacke-smythes, and ferrars, 

Bokell-smythes, horse leches and gold beters." — Cocke Lorelle's Bote. 

2 The root of this term is the Anglo-Saxon smitan, " to smite," and was 
therefore originally applied not merely to smiths alone, but also to wheelwrights, 
carpenters, masons, and smiters in general. It was, in fact, precisely among the 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 3II 

But leaving the Smiths and their relatives; let us notice 
the long list of English surnames derived from other trades 
and occupations. We have, then, the Masons and the Car- 
penters, the Bakers and the Butchers, the Butlers and Tav- 
erners, the Carters and Wagners, the Saddlers and Girdlers, 
the Tylers and Slaters, the CartwrigJits and Wheelwrights, 
the Plowrights and Wainwrights, the Woodgers and 6~tf/<r- 
utans, the Boxers and Coopers, the Taylors and Drapers, the 
Plowmans and Thatchers, the Farmers and Shepherds, the 
Chapmans and Grocers, the Cowpers (or Coopers) and Cutlers, 
the Wheelers and Millers, the Tanners and Glovers, the 
Wrights and Joiners, the Salters and Spicers, the Hedgers 
and Ditchers, the Stayners and Gilders, the Moulders and 
Callenders, the Miners and Mariners, the Spaders and i7ar- 
rowers, the Thrashers and Mowers, the Browkcrs or Brokers, 
the Pursers and Banckers, the Messengers, Ensig7is and 6#r- 
gents, the Beemans and Honeymans, the Pilots and Caulkers, 
the Drivers and Drovers, the Trappers and Ginmans, the 
Lawyers and Barristers, the Talkers and Laughers, the Bards 
and Rhymers, the Gardeners and Toilers, the Armorers and 
Furbishers, the Shipwrights and Brewers, the Pipers and 
Vidlers, the Homers and Drummers, the Bellringers and 
Homblowers, the £#<?£$• and Porters, the Hosiers and Weav- 
ers, the Caterers and Cheesemans, the Colliers and Sawyers, 
the Turners and Potters, the Hoopers and Hookers, the S<?/r 
/*r.y and Salemans, the Plummers and Glaisyers, the Skinners 
and Woolers, the Paynters and Dyers, the Mercers and Buck- 
lers, the Boardmans and Lnmans, the Chandlers and Pedlars, 
the Rhymers and Readers, the Ropers and Corders, the Twin- 
ers, the Stringers, etc., etc., including every craft, profes- 
sion, trade, or occupation carried on in old England. 1 

early English what fader was among the Romans — any smith, forger, hammerer, 
maker, or mechanical workman. The word occurs in the Saxon Chronicle in a 
warlike sense : " Angles and Saxons came to land, o'er the broad seas, Britain 
sought. Mighty war-smiths the Welsh o'ercame ! " 

1 The termination ^r is a masculine suffix, the feminine of which is j/<?^y 
hence Brewster, Baxter, Webster, and Spinster are names which signify a woman 
(not a man) who brews, bakes, weaves, or spins. That the business of brewing 
was anciently carried on by women is evident from the following authorities : 
In Sir John Skene's Borough Laws, Browsters are described as " Wemen quha 
brewes aill to be sauld." " Gif j7z£ makes gude ail," says an old Scottish statute, 
" that is sufficient. Bot gif J-fo makes evill ail j>fo shall pay aucht shillinges. or 
sail be put upon the cockstule, and the aill sail be distributed to the pure folke." 
In the Custumal of the town of Rye we read, " if a huster, free, hath made ale, 
and sell it in the foreign, in fairs, or in markets, and the lord of the soil will dis- 
tress /for against her will for Ae sale of the said ale, etc." Artificers were, by 
statute of 27, Edw. Ill, c. 5, 6, tied down to one occupation with an exception 
of female brewers, bakers, weavers, spinners, and other women employed upon 



3 i2 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

Names of the foregoing description, however mean in 
their origin, are now frequently found among the highest 
classes of society. The names Collier and Salter, for in- 
stance, are, or have been, in the British peerage, although 
those occupations were once considered so menial and 
vile that none but bondmen would follow them. " Some 
names of this sort have been changed in orthography 
to hide their original meanness, mollified ridiculously," 
says Camden, " lest their bearers should seem vilified by 
them. Carteer, Smeeth, Taylenre, Cuttlar, etc., are fre- 
quently met with as the substitutes of Carter, Smith, Tai- 
lor, and Cutler. Wise was the man that told my Lord 
Bishop that his name was not Gardener as the English pro- 
nounce it, but Gardiner, with the French accent, and there- 
fore a gentylman." 1 

Indeed, many names of trades and occupations existed 
as French surnames in England as far back as the year 
1200. Thus we have Draper, Faber or Favre, Falconer or 
Faiicnner, Forester or Foster, Marchant, Mercer, Parker, Por- 
ter, Spicer, Le barber, Le bonteiler, Le cutiler, Le cuper, Le 
gardiner, Le grosser, Le despencer or spencer, Le latimer or 
latiner, Le mascnn or masun, Le peintnr, Le taylur, Le turnur, 
Le walekur, Waliker or Walker, which meant " fuller," and 
Hellier or Hclyar, which in the dialect of Dorsetshire still 
means a " thatcher " or " tyler." Other names, which also 
seem to refer to some occupation or office, are less easily 
accounted for. Some of these are quite high-sounding, 
such as Le roy, Royal something, Duke, Baron, King, Earle, 
Knight, Pope, Bishop, Priest, Dean, Monk, etc., and must 
have been originally assumed and transmitted by persons 
who did not, in fact, hold the station which the" name in- 
dicates. Camden's observation is that " the ancestors of 
persons of such names must have served such, or acted 

works in wool, linen, or silk embroidery, etc. When men began to invade those 
departments of industry by which women used to earn an honest livelihood, they 
retained the feminine appellations for some time, as men-milliners do now ; 
but afterward masculine words drove the feminine ones out of the language, as 
men had driven the women out of the employments. Spinster still retains its 
genuine termination, and the language of the law seems to presume that every 
unmarried woman is employed in spinning. 

1 In our own times family names are often changed in accordance with tes- 
tamentary injunctions accompanying bequests of property. Motives less 
weighty, though not less powerful, have now and then produced startling 
changes of the kind. Nor is the practice new, or confined to public characters. 
Swift, in the Examiner, No. 40, 1711, says, " I know a citizen who adds or al- 
ters a letter in his name with every plum he acquires ; he now wants only the 
change of a vowel to be allied to a sovereign prince in Italy, and that, perhaps, 
he may contrive to be done by a mistake of the graver upon his tombstone." 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 313 

such parts, or were Kings of the Beane, Christmas Lords, 
etc." Most probably such names were mere nicknames, 
given in sport, in scorn, or derision, by mothers, or nurses, 
or playmates ; and which, adhering to individuals when 
surnames began to be hereditary, were handed down to 
posterity. The same with names descriptive of particular 
traits, manners, or bodily peculiarities. Le Grand, Le Vert, 
Le Noir, Blancard, Grosse- Teste, and others in French ; Green, 
Brown, White, Black, Reid, 1 Thin, Short, Small, Little, Broad- 
head, Woodhead, Addlehead, Blackhead, Whitehead, Whitelock, 
Light foot, Longshanks, Sheepshanks, Armstrong, Longfellow, 
Longman, Tallman, Prettyman, Doolittle, Hussey, Trollope, 
Kognose, Longness, Thicknesse, Sothin, Peck fat, Metcalf Boy- 
man, Hangitt, Noyes, etc., in English, are family names 
which had no other origin. 

As some surnames seem to flourish only in their native 
soil, and refuse to thrive when transplanted to another 
province, many of them, to take root in a new field, under- 
went considerable modifications in their character. The 
changes of names of English derivation, both in orthog- 
raphy and pronunciation, are chiefly confined to the vowel 
sounds, and may be attributed mainly to the broadening 
or narrowing tendencies of the various provincial dialects. 
But in the case of French surnames naturalized in England, 
their alteration in sound and orthography is sometimes so 
great as to render them, compared with the original form, 
utterly unrecognizable. The readiest corruption from the 
French is that which turns ville into field, as Blomfield from 
Blondeville, Summer field from Somerville, and then again to 
well, as Rosseville to Roswell, Bosseville to BoswelL Simple 
La Ville has become Larwell, Tuberville, Troublefield, and 
Botteville, Botfield. Worse it was for De Ville, which be- 
came Devil, and for De Ath which was contracted into 
Death. Mowbray changed into Mummery, and Molineux, 
into Mullnicks. From Butvillaine they made first Butwill- 
iam, and afterward shortened it to Butlin. Mesnilwarin 
became Manwaring, Taille-boys, Tallboys, and Damprecourt, 
Dabscot. Under such circumstances, no wonder that Le 
Fevre became Fever, Phillipot, Filpot, Delia Chambre, Deal- 

1 The very common surname, Read, Reid, or Reed, sometimes pluralized to 
Reeds, is an old spelling of red, and was primarily applied in reference to com- 
plexion. Chaucer speaks of " Floures both white and rede" and Sir John Maun- 
deville, describing the Red Sea, says : " That see is not more reed than another 
see, but in some places thereof is the gravelle reede, and therefore men clepen 
it the Rede Sea." 
22 



314 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

chamber j Scardeville, Scaredevil, De Boxhalle, BoxalL Though 
between a nosegay and a pail there exists no analogy, Bou- 
quet was turned into Buckett. 

Some counties and districts have peculiar surnames 
which are rarely found beyond their limits. They gener- 
ally belong to the local class of names, and the tenacity 
with which they cleave to the soil which gave them birth 
is something truly remarkable. Thus we can trace to 
many parts of England the original Danish names which 
were almost always those of early Danish settlements, such 
as Althorpe, Estrop, Winthrop, Kir by, Grimsby, Ormsby, 
Holmes , Flat holm, Grasholm, Wostenholm, Ipswich, Aldrich, 
Berwick, Sedgwick, Thwaite, Hallthwaite, Ormathwaite, 
Whitbeck, Leebeck, Bradwell, Dingzvell, Laxvoe, Westvoe, 
Protheroe, Gatesgill, Pickersgill, Hogarth, Applegarth, Walney, 
Ramsey, Nash, Kendal, Wexford, Hindhaugh, Lowestoft, Wit- 
berforce, Stackpole, etc. 

Cornwall, from its peninsular form, has retained this 
peculiarity more than any other county ; and as the names 
of places in this part are almost exclusively derived from 
Celtic roots, its family nomenclature differs materially 
from that of the rest of England. 

" By Tre, Pol, and Pen, 
Ye shall know the Cornish-men," 

says an old ditty, and Camden has amplified it to — 

" By Tre, Rhos, Pol, Llan, Caer, and Pen, 
You may know the most Cornish-men." 

We have already said elsewhere that Tre signifies "a 
town or dwelling " ; Rhos, a " moor " ; Pwll, a " pool " ; 
Llan, a " church ; Caer, a " cairn " ; and Pen, a " head or 
mountain." 1 

As in Cornwall, so in Wales, surnames are almost all 
derived from localities, and until a comparatively recent 
period no surnominal adjunct was used among the Welsh 
beyond ap, or " son of," as David ap Howell, Evan ap Rhys, 
Griffith ap Roger, John ap Richard, now corrupted into 
Powell, Price, Prodger, and Pritchard. To a like origin may 
be referred a considerable number of the surnames begin- 
ning with P and B now in use in England, among which 
may be mentioned Price, Pumphrey, Parry, Probert, Probyn, 
Pugh, Penry ; Bevan, Bithell, Barry, Benyon, and Bowers. 

1 See pages 123 and 124. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 3^ 

A more ancient form than ap is hah. This or vap con- 
stantly occurs in charters of the time of Henry VI. It 
was not unusual, even but a century back, to hear of such 
combinations as Evan-ap-Grijjith-ap-David-ap-Jenkin, and 
so on to the seventh or eighth generation, so that an indi- 
vidual carried his pedigree in his name. 1 

The great majority of Irish surnames are derived from 
the proper names of distinguished ancestors. Local sur- 
names rarely or never occur. Even the names of clans or 
septs formerly in use were taken from the names of dis- 
tinguished chieftains, and not from the districts they in- 
habited. In the early records of the country, certain terms 
expressive of descent are constantly employed to distin- 
guish the various tribes. Up to the period of King Brian 
Boru, in the tenth century, the Irish people were distin- 
guished by these tribe-names only. That monarch issued 
an edict that the descendants of the heads of tribes and 
families then in power should take name from them, either 
from the fathers or grandfathers, and that these names 
should become hereditary and fixed forever. It is not un- 
likely that at the first assumption of surnames some fami- 
lies went back several generations to select an illustrious 
ancestor on whom to build themselves a name. Indeed, 
some Irish families claim a royal descent which, if proved 
on authentic pedigree, would make their lineage more an- 
cient than that of any crowned head in Europe. 

A false impression prevails that in Ireland the " O " is 
more respectable than the " Mac!' whereas no such dis- 
tinction really exists, inasmuch as every family, whether 
of Firbolgic, Milesian, or Danish origin, is entitled to bear 
either prefix. A beggar may have been an " O," while 
several "Macs'* have been sovereign princes. In Con- 
naught the gentry of Milesian descent are called O'Connor, 
(J Flaherty, GMalley, etc., while the peasantry, their col- 
lateral relatives, have disused the " O" and style them- 
selves simply Connor, Flaherty, and Malley. 

" O," prefixed to an Irish name, literally means grand- 
son ; but, in a more enlarged sense, " any male descend- 
ant," like the Latin nepos. " Mac " signifies son, or " male 
descendant." The former word is translated nepos by all 

1 The following curious description of a Welshman occurs 15 Hen. VII: 
Morgano Philip alias dicto Morgano vap David vap Philip. The church of 
Llangollen in Wales is said to be dedicated to St. Collen-ap-Gwynnawg-ap- 
Clyndaxvg - ap-Cowrda-ap-Caradoc-Freichfras -ap-Llynn-Merim-ap-Einion - Yrth- 
ap-Cunedda- Wledig. 



316 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

the writers of Irish history in the Latin language, and the 
latter films. The only difference, therefore, between the 
surnames with " 0" and those with "Mac" is, that those 
who assumed the latter adopted the father's name or 
patro7iy7nic, while those who took the former chose the 
designation of the grandfather, the papponymic} 

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when the Irish 
families increased, and their territories underwent sub- 
division by the rival chieftains of the same family, each 
chief assumed, for distinction's sake, some addition to the 
family surname ; thus there were " the" Mac-Dermot, the 
head of his race, and his tributaries, Mac Dermot Roe or 
" the Red," and Mac Dermot Gall or " the Anglicized " ; 
Mac Carthy More or "the Great," Mac Carthy Reagh, or 
" the Swarthy ; " and again, O'Connor Roe f " the Red- 
haired," and O'Connor Don, " the Brown-haired." All 
these additional names were perpetuated by the represen- 
tatives of each branch for a long period, and even now 
are not extinct. It is a popular error in Ireland, that Don 
is a title of honor borrowed from the Spanish, and signify- 
ing " Lord," because an O'Connor Don happens to be the 
chief of his family; whereas, as we have just seen, it is 
merely an hereditary epithet borrowed from a physical 
peculiarity of its original bearer. 

The Irish families who lived under the English rule 
or near its pale, gradually conformed to the English 
customs and assumed English surnames, and their doing 
so was deemed to be of such political importance that it 
was thought worthy of the consideration of parliament. In 
the year 1465 an act was passed intituled, " an Act, that the 
Irish men dwelling in the counties of Dublin, Myeth, Uriell, 
and Kildare, shall goe apparelled like English men, and 
weare their beards after the English maner, sweare alle- 
geance, and take English Surname" This act directs every 
Irishman whom it concerns to " take to him an English 

1 According to the following distich, the titles Mac and O' are not merely 
what the logicians call accidents, but altogether essential to the very being and 
substance of an Irishman : 

" Per Mac atque O, tu veros cognoscis Hibernos, 
His duobus demptis, nullus Hibernus adest." 
Which has been translated : 

" By Mac and O, 
You'll always know 

True Irishmen they say ; 
For if they lack 
Both O and Mac, 

No Irishmen are they." 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. ^7 

Surname of one towne, as Sutton, Chester, Trym, Skryne, 
Corke, Kinsale ; or colour, as White, Blacke, Browne ; or arte 
or science, as Smith or Carpenter ; or office, as Cooke, But- 
ler ; and that he and his issue shall use this name under 
payne of forfeyting of his goods yearely till the premises 
be done." Thus compelled, the Mac and O'Gowans be- 
came Smiths ; the Shanachs, Foxes ; and the Geals, Whites ; 
the Mac Intyres, Carpenters ; the Mac Cogrys, L Estranges ; 
and Mac Killy, Cook. Other families resisted this perse- 
cuting mandate and clung as resolutely to their O's and 
Macs as they did to everything else that could express 
their feeling of nationality. 

In Scotland the Highlanders use the prefix Mac to 
their surname with the same meaning as the Irish ; hence 
the M' Donalds, M'Dougalls, M'Glashans, M'Alpins, M' Bains, 
M'Alisters, McGregors, M' Phersons,M } Leods,M' Nabs,M' In- 
toshes, M Leans, M' Kenzies, M' Kays, and others whose 
names are so prefixed. It will be remembered that at one 
time the Scots, an Irish sept, crossed over into Argyle, 
and gradually extended their dominion over the whole of 
the northwest of Scotland, encroaching here and there on 
the Cymry who held the lowlands, and who were proba- 
bly the people who go by the name of Picts. 1 In the 
ninth century the monarchy of the Picts was absorbed by 
the Scots, which accounts for partial mixture of Gaelic 
and other Celtic names such as Duncan, Dmibar, Douglas, 
Angus, Nairn, Currie, Guthrie, Laurie, Leslie, Paislee, Carne- 
gie, Gillespie, Carlyle, Melrose, Monteith, Cameron, Galloway, 
Buchanan, etc., most of which occur in the lowlands of 
Scotland, while the former prevail in the northern and 
western districts. Substantially, however, Scotch sur- 
names are English, with some few dialectic peculiarities. 

In addition to these there are some curious memorials 
of the influx of Anglo-Norman nobles into Scotland which 
took place during the reigns of David I and Malcolm Can- 
more. In ancient records the name of Maxwell is written 

1 The Welsh word uchel, " high," may be adduced to prove the Cymric affini- 
ties of the Picts. This word does not exist in either the Erse or the Gaelic 
languages, and yet it appears in the name of the Ochil Hills, in Perthshire. In 
Ayrshire, and again in Linlithgow, we find places called Ochil-tree ; and there 
is an Uchel-tre in Galloway. The suffix in this case is undoubtedly the charac- 
teristic Cymric word tre, " a dwelling." Again, the Erse bally, " a town," oc- 
curs in two thousand names in Ireland ; and, on the other hand, is entirely 
absent from Wales. In Scotland this most characteristic test-word is found 
frequently in the western district, while it never appears in eastern localities. 
The evidence of these names makes it impossible to deny that the Celts of the 
Scottish lowlands must have belonged to the Cymric branch of the Celtic stock. 



318 OR/GINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

in the Norman form of Maccusville. The name of Robert 
de Montealt has been corrupted into Mowatt and Moffat ; 
and the families of Sinclair, Fraser, Baliol, Bruce, Campbell, 
Colville, Somerville, Grant (le Grand), and Fleming, are all, 
as their names bear witness, of continental ancestry. 
Richard Waleys, that is, " Richard the Foreigner," was the 
ancestor of the great Wallace, and has left his name at 
Richardtun in Ayrshire. The ancestor of the Maule fami- 
ly has left his name at Maleville, or Melville, in Lothian. 
Seton takes its name from a Norman adventurer called 
Say. Tankerton, in Clydesdale, was the fief of Tancard, or 
Tancred, a Fleming who came to Scotland in the reign of 
Malcom IV. And a few village names like Ingliston, Nor. 
manton, and Flemington, afford additional evidence of the 
extensive immigration of foreign adventurers which was 
encouraged by the Scottish kings. 

While the Norman conquest wrought great and last- 
ing effects on personal nomenclature, its effects on local 
nomenclature were much slighter. The conquest, indeed, 
has left but few traces on the English map. Although 
after the battle of Hastings the best lands of England 
were at once appropriated, and distributed among the 
sixty thousand followers of the Conqueror as the reward 
of past and an incitement to future services, the change 
of local names was only slightly perceptible except in 
the smaller places. A few Norman-French names, how- 
ever, may be still pointed to as memorials of the con- 
quest. 

To these belong, first of all, the Manors, into which the 
greater part of the kingdom was parceled out. Along 
with them the Normans introduced into the local nomen- 
clature of England numerous names of Castles, which the 
Conqueror and his immediate successors caused to be 
erected all over the land. The king himself owned many ; 
and his barons followed his example, and vied with each 
other in the erection of huge and stately structures. Of 
these Richmond in Yorkshire, and Montgomery on the Welsh 
border, are the most conspicuous. At Malpas was a cas- 
tle built by the first Norman Earl of Chester to guard the 
" bad pass " into the valley of the Dee. Mont ford, or Mon- 
tesford, in Shropshire, and Mold in Flintshire, anciently 
Monthaidt (Mons Altus) were also frontier fortresses ; 
Montague, in Somerset, has Mortaine's Norman castle on 
its summit, and a Norman abbey at its foot. The com- 
manding situation of Belvoir castle justifies its Norman 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 3^ 

name. At Beaumont near Oxford was a palace of the 
Norman kings ; and at Pleshy (plaisir) in Essex, the seat of 
the High Constables of England, the ruins of the Norman 
kings are still visible. Frequently these castles took their 
name from the neighborhood, and so there still exist par- 
ishes called Castle Heddingham, Castle Cary, Castle Acre, 
etc. In other instances the name survives the existence 
of the building, as Castle Baynard and Castle Mount fichet, 
once within the precincts of London, but long since de- 
molished. As the Norman noble, even when willing to 
call his town or village by its old English name, was not 
always able to lay aside his early predilections, we find 
not unfrequently very curious combinations, as Adwick- 
le-Street, Botton-le-Moor, Laugliton-en-le-Morthen, Buckland- 
tout-Saints, Leighton Beau Desert, Ashby de la Touche, etc. 
Gradually, though, entirely new names were bestowed, 
as Beaumanoir, Beaumaris, Bellasis, Belleau, Pontefract, 
Rougemont, Newcastle, etc. It was also a common custom 
to add simply the new owner's name to the original name 
of the place, as Hurst Pier point, Hurst Monceaux, Hurst 
Courtrai, Farring Neville, Farring Peverell, Higham Fer- 
rers, Cleobury Mortimer, Stoke Lacy, Shepton Mallet, etc. 
The Norman sovereigns were passionately fond of the 
chase, and, as in the case of the "New Forest " — a large 
tract of land appropriated to that use by the simple pro- 
cess of turning the original owners out — they were not 
overscrupulous as to the means employed to gratify that 
taste. They were imitated by their nobles and courtiers 
throughout the country ; and this accounts for the many 
names formed with forest — a word which did not mean a 
" wood," as now, but localities privileged for the chase, 
and hunted over only by men of Norman blood. The 
Church also has left a strong impress of its power under 
Norman rule in numerous localities. They are easily 
recognized by the ecclesiastical titles of " Abbott, Monk, 
Bishop, Prior," which enter into the composition of their 
names, such as Abbas-Combe, Abbotsbury, Monkland, Monk- 
Wearmouth, Prior-Hardwick, Leamington-Priors, Bishops- 
Lydeard, Bishop-Auckland, Bishop-Monkton, Bishop-Stokes, 
Stoke-Canon, etc. ; while on the Tweed the stately rule of 
the monks still lives in the well-known name oi Abbots ford. 
Connected with the Church, we may also mention the 
Knights Templar, whose large possessions are still trace- 
able in many local names, such as Temple in Cornwall, 
Temple-Breuer in Lincolnshire, Temple-Newsam in York- 



320 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

shire, etc. The headquarters of these soldiers of the 
cross was in London, and the locality is still known as 
The Temple, though it has long been in possession of an- 
other profession. 1 

A conquering nation often finds it difficult to pro- 
nounce certain vocables which enter into the names used 
by the conquered people, and changes constantly arise 
which bring the ancient names into harmony with the 
phonetic laws of the language spoken by the conquerors. 
Many illustrations of this process may be found in Domes- 
day. The " inquisitors " seem to have been slow to catch 
the pronunciation of the Saxon names, and were, more- 
over, ignorant of their etymologies, and we meet, conse- 
quently, with many ludicrous transformations. The name 
of Lincoln, for example, which is a hybrid of Celtic and 
Latin, appears in the " Ravenna Geographer " in the form 
Lindum Co Ionia, and in " Bede " as Lindocolina. The en- 
chorial name must have been very nearly what it is now. 
This, however, the Norman conquerors were unable to 
pronounce, so they changed the name into Nincol or Ni- 
cole. The name of Shrewsbury 'is an English corruption of 
the Anglo-Saxon Scrobbes-byrig or Shrubborough. The Nor- 
mans, however, corrupted Scrobbesbury into Sloppesburie, 
whence the modern name of Salop is derived. So also the 
Roman Sorbiodunum was contracted into the English Sa- 
rum, and then, as in the case of Salop, the Normans 
changed the r into an /, and have thus given us the form 
Salisbury. 

As we have seen already, French and Norman names 
in England have been peculiarly liable to suffer from simi- 
lar causes. Chateau Vert, in Oxfordshire, has been con- 
verted into Shot over Hill : Beau chef into Beachy Head ; and 
Burgh Walter, the castle of Walter of Douay, who came 
over with the Conqueror, now appears in the form of 
Bridgeivater. Beau lieu in Monmouthshire, Grand pont, the 
" great bridge " over the Fal in Cornwall, and Bon gue", or 
the " good ford," in Suffolk, have been Saxonized into 
Bewley Woods, Grampound, and Bungay. Lcighton Beau- 
de'sert has been changed into Leighton Buzzard; and the 
brazen eagle which forms the lectern in the parish church 
is gravely exhibited by the sexton to passing strangers as 
the original buzzard from which the town may be sup- 
posed to derive its name. 

1 Scheie de Vere, Studies in English^ c. vii, passim. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 321 

All these details concerning the changes in the na- 
tional nomenclature of persons and places consequent 
upon the Norman conquest, though not applying directly 
to the language itself, are not the less important to notice, 
as they not only point to the multitude of tongues and 
dialects then current in the country, but also lend a strong 
coloring to the many other evidences Ave have of the real 
condition of the people in the iron grasp of their new mas- 
ters, which was not conducive to any literary culture in 
the first instance, and, indeed, not for many generations 
after, as is shown by the few wretched compositions of 
the time that have come down to us. " A language," says 
Marsh, " which exists, for centuries, only as the jargon of 
an unlettered peasantry and a dependent race, will pre- 
serve but few memorials of its age of humiliation." Nor 
can it, in that condition, preserve many words or forms 
that were once expressive of a higher civilization. The 
vocabulary of the uneducated poor is seldom much larger 
than is absolutely necessary to express their limited wants 
and ideas ; and if we consider the state of utter wretched- 
ness, poverty, and ignorance in which the native English 
population was plunged for many generations, we can 
only wonder that so much has survived of a language 
which was never much cultivated, was written and read 
by comparatively few, and spoken in many various dia- 
lects in different parts of England. 

No language can thrive without a literature, and no 
literature, without patrons. At no time were these very 
numerous among the Saxons, and the few persons there 
were at the time of the conquest that could read and write 
their own language shared in the common degradation, to 
make room for others who read French only. Hence- 
forth the native tongue, despised by the latter, not only 
as unknown, but as the language of a subject race, was 
left to the use of boors and serfs, and, except in a few 
stray cases, ceased to be written at all. The natural re- 
sults soon followed. When the educated generation that 
saw the arrival of the Norman died out, the language, 
ceasing to be read and written, lost all its literary words. 
The words of ordinary life, whose preservation is inde- 
pendent of books, lived on, of course, as ever; but the 
literary terms, those that related to science, art, and high- 
er culture, were speedily forgotten. 

Of the authors who wrote in the first three centuries 
after the conquest there are but few who used the native 



322 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

idiom, and, as even then they always wrote in their own 
local dialect, their compositions show the gradual disinte- 
gration of these dialects, rather than the amount of for- 
eign terms current already in their time among the peo- 
ple ; for as their works were written professedly for such 
of the English-speaking majority as understood as yet but 
little or no French, we can only indirectly judge from 
them to what extent the foreign idiom was known and 
used by those who came in more direct contact with their 
Norman masters. We may, however, conclude that, so 
long as the native vocabulary answered the limited wants 
of the great majority of the country-people, few foreign 
words found currency among them for many generations, 
except in the immediate vicinity of the larger cities. 
There the practice of using foreign terms commenced the 
day the Normans appeared, and this practice, being one 
of necessity, produced a new vocabulary, which probably 
was already quite extensive and in regular use by the end 
of the twelfth century. 

This was an important period in the history of the na- 
tion as well as of its language. The loss of Normandy in 
1204 brought the ruling classes and the commonalty of 
England closer together, put an end to the transmarine 
nationality and domicile of the former, and gave a com- 
mon political interest in relation to the outside world to 
all dwellers on English soil. From that time forward, 
the different races — Celts, Saxons, Danes, Normans — who 
thus far had encamped in hostile attitude on British soil, 
were in a fair way of being fused into one. If, in spite of 
common interests and the ever-growing multiplicity of the 
ties of blood between them, the Normans still kept strict- 
ly to their own speech, and continued to consider the 
popular dialect as a language good enough for the com- 
mon purposes of life, but unfit as yet for refined intellect- 
ual culture, it was no longer with that contemptuous ar- 
rogance with which in former days they had looked down 
upon it as fit for rustics only. The first great step, 
however, toward that blending of tongues which was 
to crown the mixing of families already begun, was 
taken when the native writers and translators of the 
thirteenth century began to admit freely into their writ- 
ings an unlimited number of those generally intelligi- 
ble French words of which the stock was, through closer 
intercourse between the governors and the governed, per- 
petually on the increase. As fast as good French books 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 323 

were produced, Englishmen translated them, and the 
translations probably found ten readers for one who could 
enjoy the originals. Thus the new language, pruned and 
shaped by men of taste and talent, rapidly improved in 
form and regularity, and, cultivated by the better classes, 
it reached maturity in the Midland counties first, and es- 
pecially in and around the capital, where, toward the mid- 
dle of the fourteenth century, it had acquired sufficient 
importance to pass current among the Normans them- 
selves. In their mouths, of course, French words and 
phrases were still more abundant, and more correctly 
applied ; and their mode of speaking, sedulously followed 
by all who laid any claim to good taste and refinement, 
was certainly not without its influence on the future con- 
struction of the sentence. 

For three centuries there had been, in reality, no stand- 
ard form of speech in England which could claim pre- 
eminence over the others. Now there was a rapid de- 
velopment of the dialect which before long was to become 
the national literary language. The war between England 
and France which broke out in 1338, and resulted in the 
final loss of all the English possessions on the Continent, 
further tended to discredit among Englishmen of all class- 
es the language of their enemies, and gave to English an 
enormous advantage over its rival in respect to populari- 
ty. Henceforth schools were perfectly at liberty to use 
whatever language they pleased as a medium of instruc- 
tion, and even as early as 1362, pleading in English, as we 
have seen, was authorized by Act of Parliament in all the 
law courts of the kingdom, though it was found necessary 
to continue the practice of recording the cases in Latin, 
the popular idiom still lacking too much in precision and 
uniformity to allow its employment for documentary pur- 
poses. And yet, while English was thus proclaimed as 
the national speech of England, it was during the fifty 
years that followed that more French words entered into 
the language than at any previous period. The reason of 
this is obvious. Three centuries of misery and national 
degradation had stripped the native tongue of full half of 
its Avords, and left the remainder in utter confusion. Now 
that the new language began to be used for other than 
mere colloquial purposes, the only terms at hand to ex- 
press ideas above those of every-day life were to be found 
in the French of the privileged classes, of whom alone 
art, science, law, and theology had been for generations 



324 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

the inheritance,, and which, even when in its decline, had 
still a full vocabulary, which could express all current 
ideas, and serve every purpose of social and business in- 
tercourse. The extensive adoption of French words, to 
supply the place of the forgotten native ones, was there- 
fore only the result of the intellectual movement which 
prevailed in the half century named. Words that are 
lost or obsolete are hardly ever revived in any language, 
and it was not certainly during a period of promise and 
returning prosperity, when the tendency was to obliterate 
all former distinctions of origin and race, that there could 
be any disposition or wish among the men of English de- 
scent to revive invidious distinctions through old-fash- 
ioned forms of speech which had long since been forgot- 
ten. On the contrary, the settled habit of using familiar 
terms for familiar subjects favored a still greater influx of 
foreign words, as their use became necessary for the ex- 
pression of new wants and new ideas, which the improved 
state of things suggested and created. While words thus 
introduced had mainly reference to business and matters 
of general interest, the Normans, in using the new idiom, 
enriched its vocabulary with many terms relating to their 
own mode of life and higher social culture. Thus the 
language, which only a century previous had been a con- 
fused jargon, acquired a richness and pliancy which made 
it equal to all the requirements of the epoch, and at the 
same time it assumed that mixed character which ever 
since has been one of its most marked features. 

In inquiring into the process of amalgamation of the 
two idioms that were current in England, side by side, 
immediately after the conquest, we may leave out of view 
two classes of people in the first instance — the Norman 
nobles and the English peasants. The first, immured in 
fortified castles with their families and retinue, anxiously 
preserving their original connection with France, where 
many of them possessed large estates, associating only 
with their countrymen at the state festivals, when they 
repaired to the court of their sovereign, and too haughty 
to converse with their vassals, retained the exclusive use 
of French to a much later period than that which at pres- 
ent occupies our attention. The second, or " uplandish " 
men, as they are frequently called — the cities being usual- 
ly situated in the plains — having little intercourse with 
their foreign masters and overseers, continued for ages to 
preserve their Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Danish dialects, 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



325 



varying in almost every locality, where in many in- 
stances they retain it, only slightly modified, to the pres- 
ent day. 1 

It is, therefore, in the towns only that we can expect 
to find an early mixture of language resulting from an 
early mixture of the inhabitants, and to their history we 
must look for the evidence of its operation. There lived 
the tradesmen who provided the wealthy Normans with 
their luxuries; and to sell their wares, they had to be 
agreeable to their customers and acquaint themselves with 
their language. Paris and Rouen were the oracles of the 
fair sex. These cities supplied articles of dress and fash- 
ion, wherewith the ladies decked themselves so gayly as 
to draw down the wrath of the pulpit. 2 In the days of 
Edward I, we find scores of French words, bearing on 
ladies' ways of life, employed by English writers. Many 
were the articles of luxury that came from abroad, and 
then, as well as now, they kept the name under which they 
were imported. Simple hues, like " red " and " blue " did 
well enough for the common folk, but the higher classes 
required a wider range of choice, such as gray, crimson, 
purple, scarlet, vermilion, orange, and others. The English 
chapman and monger now withdrew into low life, making 
way for the more gentlemanly foreign marchand. Still, 
as the English women were always accounted skillful at 
needlework, 3 most likely many a clever girl, who had 
learned her trade at some French mantua-maker's estab- 
lishment, in time set up for herself ; but if she expected to 
be at all successful, she had to speak the language of her 
lady customers. Thus a crowd of words found their way 
into the English vocabulary which, only modified by 

1 Sane tota lingua Nordanimbrorum, et maxime in Eboraco, ita inconditum 
stridet ut nihil nos australes intelligere possumus. (Will. Malmesbury, Gest. 
Pont, 209.) In Australibus Angliae finibus, et praecipue circa Devonian!, An- 
glica lingua hodie magis videtur incomposita : ea tamen, vetustatem longe plus 
redolens, borealibus insulse partibus per crebras Dacorum et Norwagensium ir- 
ruptiones valve corruptis, originalis linguae proprietatem, et antiquum loquendi 
modum magis observat. (Giraldus Cambrensis, i, 6.) Quod. Mercii sive Medi- 
terranei Angli, tanquam participantes naturam extremorum, collaterals linguae, 
arcticam et antarcticam, melius intelligant quam advicem se intelligent jam ex- 
tremi. — Hygden, Polychron., i, 59. 

2 One preacher, in 1160, goes so far as to call fine clothing " the devil's 
mouse-trap." Yellow raiment and blanchet, a kind of cosmetic for whitening 
the skin, seem to have been reckoned the most dangerous of snares to woman- 
kind, and through them to mankind in general. — Old English Homilies, see 
page 392. 

3 Anglicae nationis femin3e multum acu et auri textura valent. — Guill. Pic- 
tav., apud scrip, rer. Norm., p. 211. 



326 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

fashion, are still a notable part of the language. Half of 
the trades bear French names. Carpenters, masons, plumb- 
ers, joiners, painters, always found good employment with 
the rich Normans who covered the country with castles, pal- 
aces, and mansions, and the furniture dealers made lots of 
money in furnishing them with chairs, tables, commodes, 
sofas, curtains, carpets, elegantly embroidered pieces of tapestry, 
generally imported from the continent, together with such 
other articles of virtu and objects of curiosity as were used 
to adorn the sumptuous apartments in the residences of the 
Norman nobility, and calculated to charm the fastidious 
tastes of their luxurious existence. 

It is not asserted that all these French words written 
in italics formed part of the English vocabulary as early 
as the first century after the conquest ; but since the pre- 
cise date of their introduction can not be ascertained, we 
may at least endeavor to discover the causes and influences 
which led to their admittance into the language. 

Among these, the clergy occupy a place not less con- 
spicuous than the ladies. Their greater learning, their 
greater intercourse with other parts of the world, was, 
from one point of view, one of the better results of the 
conquest ; but, on the other hand, it led to a vast inroad 
of foreign words even in quarters that were inaccessible 
to the influence of luxury and fashion. " Few of us have 
an idea," says Oliphant, " of the wonderful changes thus 
brought about by the teaching of the Franciscans. It was 
a many-sided brotherhood, being always in contact with 
the learned, with the wealthy, and with the needy alike. 
The English friar was equally at home in the school, in 
the bower, in the hovel. He could speak more than one 
tongue, thanks to the training that had been bestowed 
upon his education. We may imagine his every-day life. 
He spends his morning in drawing up a Latin letter to 
the General Minister at Oxford or Paris. In the after- 
noon he visits the lady of the castle, and tells her the 
last news of Queen Eleanor's court, points a moral with 
some scriptural quotation, and lifts up his voice against 
the sad freaks played by fashion in ladies' dress. In the 
evening he goes to the neighboring hamlet, and holds forth 
on the green to a throng of horny-handed churls, men 
who earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brows. 
A new link was thus formed to bind all classes together 
in godly fellowship ; nothing like this Franciscan move- 
ment had ever been known in England. The old was be- 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 327 

ing replaced by the new. A preacher would suit his lan- 
guage and his subject to his listeners ; they cared not to 
hear about herds or husbandmen, but about their betters. 
He would, therefore, talk about ladies, knights, and nobles ; 
and when discoursing about these, he must have been often 
driven to interlard his English with French words, so as 
to render more faithfully the picture of their doings. Per- 
haps he himself, as a man of learning, began to look down 
upon the phrases of his childhood as somewhat coarse ; 
and as his lowly hearers rather liked a term now and then 
that was a little above their understanding, he no doubt 
indulged occasionally in what is called " fine language." 
This would be relished by burghers even more than by 
peasants ; high-wrought words and phrases have always 
had a charm for a certain class of people. As years went 
on, and as men more and more strove to ape their betters, 
the French words would drive out the English, and the 
latter class would linger only in the mouths of upland folk, 
where a keen antiquary may find some of them still that 
have become obsolete in modern English. As we advance 
in the thirteenth century, we find Churchmen becoming 
more and more French in their speech. Hundreds of 
good old English words were now lost forever, and the 
terms that replaced them, having been for years in the 
mouths of men, were at last being set down in manu- 
scripts. So mighty was the spell at work, that French 
words found their way even into the Lord's Prayer and 
the Creed ; the last strongholds, it might be thought, of 
pure native English." 

But the monks of old did not confine themselves to 
preaching; all the lore of the day was lodged in their 
hands. Roger Bacon's life sets before us the bold way 
in which some of them pried into the secrets of Nature. 
One of the means by which they drew to themselves the 
love of the common folk was the practice of leechcraft ; 
in the friars the leper found his only friends. To these 
early forefathers of our art of healing we owe a further 
change in the English tongue. There are many old- 
fashioned words in English for sundry parts and functions 
of the human frame, which no well-bred man can now use, 
custom having ruled that in speaking of them we must 
use foreign synonyms. It seems that, to the English mind, 
certain words, disguised under a foreign garb, are thereby 
deprived of their most offensive features ; and certain 
things unmentionable in plain English may be, with all 



328 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

propriety, referred to by their name in French. This eu- 
phemism we find traces of as far back as the fourteenth 
century. Robert of Gloucester, in describing the tortures 
inflicted by King- John on his subjects in 1216, and the 
death of the Earl Marshall on an Irish field in 1234, uses 
foreign terms instead of certain English words which 
would be utterly inadmissible at present. Since that time 
science has invented names the mere sound of which, per- 
haps, may scare a patient, but which at least conceal from 
his friends the nature and extent of his infirmities. Still, 
this part of the physician's vocabulary is only of recent 
introduction, and Charles II, who was the best bred Eng- 
lishman of his time, but unacquainted with modern scien- 
tific nomenclature, still wrote to his sister : " Poor O'Neal 
died this afternoon of an ulcer in his guts." 1 We could 
not say so now, so swiftly does fashion change, though it 
be not always for the better. In those days, a man in his 
cups was simply called " drunk " ; 2 at present, a person who 
indulges in the use of alcoholic liquors is apt to become in- 
toxicated. In former times " hard work made one sweat "; 
now-a-days excessive labor causes profuse perspiration. If a 
man, thus overheated, were to stand in a draught, he might 
catch his death of cold, get very sick, and even die, would 
read well enough as an ordinary warning ; in a treatise 
on hygiene for popidar use, the matter is now presented as 
follows : "If a person, whose system is excited by vigorous 
exertion, should suddenly expose himself to a current of air, 
he would probably check his perspiration, and contract a dis- 
ease which might involve the most serious and even fatal 
consequences!' Few of these words, it is true, had the right 
of citizenship in England during the thirteenth century ; 
but it was thus that the agencies were at work which 
favored their admission afterward. Nor would they have 
come in so plentifully, if they had not met the corrupt 
taste of a large class of people who would think it vulgar 
to express themselves in plain and simple words and short 
sentences. Speakers and writers of this kind must have 
hearers and readers minded like themselves to be at all 
successful, and but too often they are found among those 
who like to boast of their " Anglo-Saxon descent " and 
their " glorious Anglo-Saxon language." It is among 
those that we may hear slavery called involuntary servi- 

1 Curry's Civil Wars in Ireland, i, 308. 

2 Inebriety was called " drunkenhede " by Wyclif, " drunkeshepe " by Gow- 
er, and " dronkenesse " by Chaucer. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 329 

tude ; and a king, a certain exalted personage ; a well-dressed 
woman, an elegantly attired female ; or a young widow, an 
interesting relict. Country newspapers, especially, delight 
in the use of high-sounding words for common-place 
ideas, and city papers are by no means entirely free from 
them. If workmen want more pay, operatives are said to 
desire additional remuneration. If a cow is killed by light- 
ning, the animal was destroyed by the electric fluid. If a 
house or barn gets on fire, it is the devouring element that 
did the damage. Thieves and murderers are not hanged 
now, but launched into eternity. Ships, on the other hand, 
glide securely and majestically into their native element, the 
said native element being one in which these ships never 
were before. Read the column of advertisements. There 
the coachmaker's shop is a repository for carriages, the pho- 
tographer's a gallery of art, and the thread and needle store 
an emporium. Boarding-schools are academies for girls, and 
seminaries for boys ; with higher pretensions still they are 
establishments. The rich farmer who finds himself called 
an eminent agriculturist is possibly one of the vestrymen, 
and he does not like to find in the minister's sermon a 
lower standard of diction than in the village newspaper. 
Thus even the pulpit is sometimes drawn into the use of 
this abominable jargon, worked up into curiously wrought 
sentences for the greater edification of the congregation. 
A recent English author 1 quotes a preacher who changed 
his text " we can not always stand upright " into " we can 
not always maintain an erect position."* And the author 
of " Recollections of Oxford " 8 makes one of the profess- 
ors say : " A system thus hypothetically elaborated is, after 
all, but an inexplicable concatenation of hyperbolical incongru- 
ities" ; and he adds: "Such sentences, delivered in a 
regular cadence, formed too often our Sunday fare, in 
days happily gone by." When such is the language of 
the learned, it is quite natural that, when Canning wrote 
the inscription graven on Pitt's monument in the London 
Guildhall, an alderman should feel quite disgusted at the 
grand phrase " He died poor," and propose to substitute 
"He expired in indigent circumstances." * 

1 Barnes, Early English, p. 106. 

2 The following epitaph, quoted by Harrison, reads very much like it: 

" Here lies the bodie of Dean David Auricula, 
Who in the ways of God walked perpendicular." 
8 Cox, Recollections of Oxford, p. 223. 
4 Oliphant, Sources of Standard English^ p. 342. 
23 



330 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



A powerful agency in the introduction of French words, 
expressing a higher order of ideas, into the English vocabu- 
lary, was the University. Up to the end of the twelfth 
century, Oxford and Cambridge had been only in their 
incipient stages of arts schools of the Benedictine type ; 
and though certain passages of " Asser's Life of Alfred " 
have often been quoted to trace back the origin of Oxford 
University to the time of that monarch, it is now well un- 
derstood that such passages must be regarded as later 
interpolations in the interests of the antiquity of that dis- 
tinguished seat of learning ; but that in reality there existed 
no university in England before the Norman conquest, at 
least not in the sense of a higher class of schools doing the 
work of a university, that is, providing for the teaching 
of men as well as of boys by specialist professors, is now 
clearly ascertained. 1 In this sense it is not before 1133 
that we find the first traces of any organized teaching in 
Oxford, and only in 123 1 we find Henry III issuing writs 
for the regulation of Cambridge " clerks," and making 
mention of chancellor and masters. 2 Until about that 
time all who could afford it went to the University of 
Paris to complete their studies commenced in the arts 
schools of England ; but an occurrence which well nigh 
led to the disruption of the Paris University greatly favored 
the development of both Oxford and Cambridge Univer- 
sities, whose fame has been ever since on the increase. In 
1228 a students' riot took place in Paris, in which the Eng- 
lish were mainly concerned, and which resulted in the 
maltreatment of many of the citizens. The provost of 

1 Anstey, Monumenta Academica, i, xxxiv. 

8 " While it is highly probable that the date 1200 may be assigned to Cam- 
bridge, there can be no doubt that at Oxford there was an university, in fact if 
not in form, sixty years before this. Had there not been a well-known and act- 
ive higher school there in the earlier decades of the twelfth century, Robert 
Pulleyne would not have come from Paris about 1130 to lecture there, nor would 
Vacarius have endeavored to found a school of civil law in 1149, nor should we 
hear, on the authority of John of Salisbury, that discussions regarding the uni- 
versal {in re or ante rem) raged at Oxford in 1153. Again, to prove that Ox- 
ford was largely frequented in 1200, it is sufficient to say that in 1209 there was 
a secession from Oxford : ' Recesserunt ab Oxonia tria millia clericorum tarn 
magistri quam discipuli ita quod nee unus ex omni universitate remansit.' Of 
these, some went to Reading, some to Cambridge. Then, Giraldus Cambrensis 
read his Topographia Cambria to the inhabitants of Oxford, and the second day's 
reading, he tells us, was addressed to the ' doctores diversarum facultatum omnes 
et discipulos famse majoris et noticise.' This was in 11 86. Accordingly, we may 
conclude that Oxford was entitled to the name ' universitas ' about 1140. Still, 
the first royal recognition was by Henry III, who summoned Parliament to meet 
at Oxford in 1258." — S. S. Laurie, The Rise and Early Constitution of Univer- 
sities. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 33I 

Paris, proceeding to punish the students by order of the 
queen, attacked them while at their games outside the 
city, and made great havoc among them. Many were 
killed while seeking safety in places of concealment, and 
a larger number still were seriously wounded. The uni- 
versity authorities were violently excited ; they demanded 
satisfaction, and, this having been refused, a large number 
of masters and their pupils left Paris, and settled at various 
younger university seats which had begun to arise in 
France. The English portion of the university went to 
Oxford and Cambridge, and Henry III took advantage 
of the opportunity to invite the foreign masters also to 
withdraw to England and take refuge under his protec- 
tion. It is said that not a single master of any eminence 
remained in Paris. The influence of this Paris migration 
on higher education in England was as great as it was 
lasting. " Until then the University of Paris well-nigh 
monopolized the interest of the learned in Europe. Thither 
thought and speculation seemed irresistibly attracted. It 
was there the new orders fought the decisive battle for 
place and power; that new forms of skepticism rose in 
rapid succession, and heresies of varying moment riveted 
the watchful eye of Rome ; that anarchy most often tri- 
umphed and flagrant vices most prevailed ; and it was 
from this seething center that those influences went forth 
which predominated in the contemporary history of Oxford 
and Cambridge." 1 From this moment forward we find 
native poets writing French poetry, translating imported 
French literature, and filling their vernacular composi- 
tions with a mass of foreign words conformably to fashion, 
and in imitation of their migrating masters, who carried 
with them their genius and their French of Paris. 

It was thus that French poetry and romance became 
in course of time the fashionable literature of England. 
But aside from this, there was rising into importance a 
literature which has been the earliest of almost every na- 
tion — the national ballad poetry. Doubtless this poetry 
had never been extinct among the native English popula- 
tion during their long subjection to the Normans, but 
after the great wars of the thirteenth century, it began to 
be sung in the language which was gradually becoming 
the language of all England. The deeds of English bow- 
men, and English nobles and knights, who fought side by 

1 Mullinger, i, 132. 



332 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

side, were the pride and glory of the people of all ranks. 
At the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the 
fourteenth centuries, the first dawnings of this national lit- 
erature appeared. It was then that a number of warlike 
French romances were Anglicised, such as the Tristam, 
the Havelok, the Horn, and above all, the renowned Alex- 
ander. Legends about King Arthur were most popular ; 
the " Round Table " became a household word in Eng- 
land. All these poems exhibit the language in a state of 
transition, and clearly show how the two elements were 
gradually intermingling. The language of chivalry and 
war was exclusively French, and brought in such words 
as honor, glory, renown, army, host, champion, valiant, feat, 
achievement, courtesy, gentle, challenge, etc., and paved the 
way for the many French military terms in which modern 
English abounds. French has always been the language 
which has furnished the English vocabulary with terms 
for soldiering — from the word castel, brought over in 1048, 
to that of mitrailleuse, imported in 1870. Englishmen of 
old could do little in war but sway the weighty axe or 
form the shield-wall under such Kings as Ironside or Har- 
old ; it was France who taught them to ply the mangonel 
and trebuchet. Many hunting terms, borrowed from the 
same land, may be found in the Sir Tristam. Several of 
the French words then used in cookery may be read in the 
Lay of Havelok ; nor is the fashion of having French bills 
of fare, which announce inferior dishes under gorgeous 
names, a modern invention. 1 

Next to the lady, the clergy, and the knight, the law- 
yer also exerted a great influence in the formation of the 
English vocabulary. With him came in such words as 
advocate, alliance, arrearage, chattels, demise, devise, demurrer, 
disclaimer, domain, estate, fief, fealty, homage, liege, loyalty, 
manor, moiety, personalty, pursuit, realty, rent, seisin, sergeant, 
treaty, trover, voucher, etc. For centuries the whole of the 
government was in the hands of the French-speaking class. 
Henry II, the great organizer of English law, was a thor- 
ough Frenchman, who lived in England as little as he 
could ; in his time the tribunals were reformed, and the 
law-terms with which Blackstone abounds are the bequests 
of this age. Those who administered the law were either 
churchmen or knights. The latter, who spoke French, 
did the talking ; the former, who had learned Latin, did 

1 See page 446. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 333 

the writing 1 . French was the French of the period ; but 
the Latin of the law was only a sort of jargon, which is 
neither Popular Latin nor Low Latin, but a strange mixt- 
ure of both, 1 often containing French and English words 
with Latin terminations. Such is the origin of the lan- 
guage of the law, whose vocabulary often perplexes law- 
yers themselves, and always puzzles their clients. 2 

It is evident that nothing less than the most minute in- 
quiry into all the circumstances of the history of England 
under the first Norman kings would be sufficient for the 
full investigation of our subject ; but the preceding obser- 
vations will help us to form an idea of the manner in which 
the wonderful amalgamation of the two languages was ac- 
complished. The fusion, indeed, was complete. Not only 
was there a barbarous mixture of French and English 
words in the same sentence, but the words themselves were 
often heterogeneous compounds of parts most dissimilar 
in their nature. Thus, we find English roots with French 
suffixes, as\ove-able, bond-age, upheav-tf/, forbear-ance, nigg- 
ard, starv-ation, trusts, hsh-ery, latch-*?/, whims-tea/, wharf- 
inger, tru-ism, odd-ity, acknowledg-/^?/^, slumbr-ous, right- 
eous, etc. Then again French roots with English suffixes, 
as use-iul, real-ly, false-hood, nurse-ling, dtike-dom, gentle- 
man, country-man, fever-ish, grace-less, neat-ness, apprentice- 
ship, quarrel-some, etc. French verbs take English termi- 
nations, and are conjugated in the English manner. Most 
of these changes took place in the thirteenth and espe- 
cially in the fourteenth century. " As long as the two races 
remained at all distinct and hostile," says Dr. Freeman, 
" but few French words crept into English, and, for most 
of those which did, we can see a direct reason. But as 
the fusion of races went on, as French became not so much 
a foreign tongue as a fashionable tongue, the infusion of 
French words into English went on much faster. The 
love of hard words, of words which are thought to sound 
learned or elegant, that is, for the most part words that 
are not thoroughly understood is, I conceive, not peculiar 
to any one age. What it leads to in bur own day we see 
in that foul jargon against whose further inroads lovers of 
their native tongue have to strive. But it was busily at 
work in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Every 
man who thought in English, but to whom a sprinkling of 

1 This is the kind of Latin referred to on page 572. 

3 See the Law Dictionaries of Burrill, of Bouviers, of Jacobs, and others. 



334 ORTGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

foreign words seemed an ornament of speech, did some- 
thing in the way of corruption." This, indeed, might 
have been expected. Wealth, when accompanied by free- 
dom, generally gives birth to magnificence, but it does not 
of necessity and immediately become the parent of taste 
and invention. At the time spoken of, kings and nobles 
were in the habit of expending their whole stock of gaiety, 
as well as their treasure, on the four great festivals of the 
year, and the intervening times of leisure were spent in 
pleasure and luxury, devising modes of amusement, and 
providing a disposition to be amused. But as the business 
part of the community had something else to do than to 
contrive amusements, they seemed to have contented them- 
selves with copying, as nearly as they could, though on a 
smaller scale, the pleasures of their superiors in wealth 
and social position. Their festivities were conducted with 
the same minute attention to ceremonial, and diversified 
with the same or very similar sports and representations. 
According to the fashion of the day, the recitation of tales 
of chivalry was necessary to the solemnity of these festi- 
vals ; and as the French minstrels had long since exhaust- 
ed the fabulous era of every known history, their English 
successors were reduced to the necessity of translating. 
In executing this task, under the constraint of finding a 
constant succession of rhymes in a language which was 
still rude and intractable, they must often have been led 
to borrow words and phrases from the original. In this 
way a currency was given to every new term which had 
acquired the authority of colloquial use, and others were 
introduced which, repeated in their turn, soon formed 
part of the vocabulary of the new language. 

" Whatever existed," says Marsh, " in the English 
tongue, whether by translation or by original composi- 
tion, now became a part of the general patrimony of the 
English people ; and there, as everywhere else, the learn- 
ing, the poetry, the philosophy, which had been slowly 
gathered on the summits of social life, and had been the 
peculiar nutriment of the favored classes, now flowed down 
to a lower level, and refreshed, as with the waters of a 
fountain of youth, the humble ranks of the English people. 
Native poets, composing original works in their own 
tongue, would naturally use the poetic diction in which 
the productions of French literature had been clothed in 
assuming an English dress, for these were their only ver- 
nacular models. But English rhymers were still generally 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 335 

acquainted with French, and that language had already 
attained a culture which eminently fitted it for literary 
purposes, and made it a store-house of poetic wealth in 
words as well as in thought, and a convenient resource 
for versifiers who were in vain struggling to find adequate 
expressions in the vocabulary of Saxon English. The 
English middle classes, who were now for the first time 
admitted to the enjoyment of literary pleasures, accepted 
as a consecrated speech the dialect employed by their au- 
thors and translators, without inquiring into the etymology 
of its constituents ; and thus, in the course of one genera- 
tion, a greater number of French words were introduced 
into English verse, and initiated as lawful members of the 
poetical guild, than in nearly three centuries which had 
elapsed since the Norman conquest. The foreign matter 
became thoroughly assimilated nutriment to the speech, 
the mind, and the heart of the fragmentary people who 
had now combined in an entire organized commonwealth ; 
and though the newly-adopted Romance words were not 
indigenous, yet they were acknowledged and felt to be as 
genuine English as those whose descent from the Gothic 
stock was most unequivocal." 

At that time both French and English were spoken in 
England, as French and German are now spoken in Elsas, 
or French and Flemish in Belgium. The difference be- 
tween the French-speaking and the English-speaking man 
did not always mean that the one could speak no English 
and the other no French. It simply meant that the one 
spoke French at his fireside and English only on occasion, 
while the other spoke English at his fireside and French 
occasionly only. Between those who spoke French well, 
and others who were totally ignorant of it, the different 
shades were innumerable ; their gradation was that from 
the better to the lower classes of the people, and if among 
the latter the original Saxon degenerated into a nameless 
jargon, it was among the former that the alteration took 
place which converted that old Saxon into modern Eng- 
lish. The change, of course, was gradual, and in some 
parts took much longer. than in others in being accom- 
plished. Some classes of society began to use the mixed 
language long before the rest did ; those who lived in the 
cities, or about large Norman establishments, were evi- 
dently the first to employ it ; but as these were not confined 
to any part of the country in particular, the mixture neces- 
sarily varied with the different localities and dialects 



336 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

among- which it originated ; and it is this circumstance, 
more than any other, which renders it impossible to deter- 
mine, with any degree of precision, the exact epoch of 
the rise and growth of the new national language ; yet, 
from historical and documentary evidence, we are justi- 
fied in assuming that its formation took place mainly dur- 
ing the thirteenth century, and that by the end of that 
century it was already far advanced. 

There is a very curious composition of that period, 
called " The Land of Cokaigne," 1 in which French words 
appear repeatedly, and, with the exception of articles, aux- 
iliaries, pronouns, and conjunctions, almost exclusively. 

The pillars of that cloister all 

beth y-turned of chrystal 
with harlas and capital. 

of green jaspe and red coral. 

It terminates thus : 

Pray we God so mot it be, 
Amen, per seint charite. 

Even Robert of Gloucester, who wrote about the year 
1290, and was rather antiquated in his diction, uses many 
words taken from the French : 

Of noble men y-clothed in ermine each one 
of one suit, and served at this noble f est an one. 

Forty years later, Adam Davie, in his " Lyf of Alisaun- 
dre the Grete," gives the words nearly as he borrowed 
them from the French : 

In thei ty me fay re and jolyf 
Olympias that fayre wyfe 
wolde make a riche fest 
of knittes and lefdyes honest. 

1 Cokaigne or cockayne, in French cocagne, was in mediaeval mythology the 
name of an imaginary land of luxury, the houses of which are made of cakes, 
coques, as they were then called, later on couque ; "koek" in Dutch, and pro- 
nounced in the same manner. Hence the word " koekie," an old Dutch dimin- 
utive, known in America as cookie. Cocagne is derived from the Latin coquina, 
used by Palladius and Isidore of Seville. Ih the Glosses it is written cocina, 
which in French has become cuisine. In English it was " cokeney "first, and 
finally " cockney." 

I have no salt bacon, 
ne no cokeney, by Christe ! collops for to make. — Piers Plowman* s Vision. 

Perhaps the proficiency which the inhabitants of the metropolis displayed 
in the culinary art may have procured them the appellation of cockneys from 
uplandish or countrymen. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 337 

Sometimes even literally, so : 

He blew on his home quyk sans doute. 

In " the Boke of the most victorious Prince Guy, Earl 
of Warwick," which belongs to the same epoch, and which 
Chaucer quotes as one of the " romances of price," we 
find the same mixture : 

Wei courteously answerid Guy, 
beau sire, sayd he, grammercy. 

In speaking of this kind of mixture, Robert of Brunne 
says: 

Thai seyd in so quaynte Inglis 
that manyone wate not what it is ; 

yet his own " Handlyng Synne " swarms with foreign 
words, such as: 

.... a certayn day of tertne. 

.... on many manner divers wise. 

. ... ye, he seyde, graunte mercy. 

About the year 1350, Richard Hampole, who, evincing 
a kind of hatred of the language of the conquest, says 
" he wrote only for those who understood nothing but 
English," shows to what extent French words then pre- 
vailed in the language : 

And ther is evere perfect love and charite 
and ther is wisdom withoute folye 
and ther is honeste without vileney 
and these a man may joyes of hevene call, 
and gutte the most sovereyn joye of alle, 
in the syght of Goddes hxygktface 
in wham resteth alle matter e grace. 

After him, William Langland, who is even more old- 
fashioned in his language, frequently makes use of French 
words which are obsolete or much modified in modern 
English. Thus, in " Piers Plowman's Visions," he says : 

Ye have manged over much. 

And then, again : 

Though ic can soffre famyn and defaute. 

And again: 

Dykers and Delvers that don here werk ille, 
and driveth forth the longe day 
with " Deu vous saue f dam Emme. 



338 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

The following stanza is from a pretty song of the time 
of Richard II, quoted by Wright and Halliwell. It is full 
of foreign terms : 

Continuance 

of remembrance 

with-owte endyng 

doth me penaunce 

and grete grewaunce 

for your partyng. 

Some of these compositions are of a light and local 
character, and written more to please than to instruct. 
This, however, can not be said of Wyclif's version of the 
Bible, which certainly was not made for the ruling classes, 
but avowedly for the people at large. The following 
passage of St. Luke, which we have seen already in many 
idioms and dialects, will therefore give us an excellent 
insight into the people's English of the second half of 
the fourteenth century, as then generally understood — 
making allowance for the archaic forms of Biblical lan- 
guage as found at all times and in all versions : 

And it is done aftirwarde ihc wente into a cytee fat is clepide 
naym, and his disciplis wenten wip hym, & a ful greet cumpanye of 
puple. solely whanne he came ny} to pe $ate of pe cytee> lo an one- 
lepy sone of his modir was borne oute deade. and pis was a wid- 
owe, and myche cumpanye of pe cytee (came) wip hir. whom whanne 
pe lorde ihu had seen, he mouede by mercy upon hir, seyde to hir. 
nyl pou weep, and he came to, and touchide pe beer, forsope pei 
pat baren, stoden. and he seip }onge man, I seye to pee rise vp. 
and he pat was deade, sate a^en, and bigan for to speek. and he 
3aue hym to his modir. sopely dreede took alle men, and pei mag- \ 
nyfieden god seyinge. for a greet prophete hap risen amonge vs, for 
& god hap visitide his pore puple. and pis worde wente oute of hym 
into al Judee, and into al pe cuntre aboute. 

It is very probable that the language did not receive 
much real benefit from this indiscriminate adoption of 
foreign terms and idioms ; but perhaps it was in some 
measure indebted to them for its adoption by the Nor- 
man nobles and even at court, where by degrees it sup- 
planted the Norman French, which had exclusively pre- 
vailed there from the time of the conquest. This al- 
teration, which insured to the national literature all the 
advantages that patronage could bestow, seems to have 
commenced in the reign of Edward III, whose policy led 
him to proscribe the exclusive use of French in the courts 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



339 



of law, and to place, there at least, the English language 
on equal terms of privilege with the former. Gower, as 
we have seen, commenced his literary career by aspiring 
to the character of a French poet, and only began his 
English work in his old age, during the reign of Rich- 
ard II ; the fashionable dialect, therefore, had evidently 
changed during the interval. It may be presumed, also, 
that this change procured to us the advantage of Chau- 
cer's talents ; had he written a few years earlier, it is 
probable, from the fact of his social position, that he 
would have employed the French language instead of the 
New English in his compositions. 

From a general review of his works, however, it ap- 
pears that he entertained a very mean opinion of the 
national language as it was before his time, as well as of 
the poets who had employed it. Instead of following 
their stiff and antiquated diction, or spending his energies 
in grieving over the past, he frankly adopted the new 
popular dialect, and endeavored to improve it by a more 
correct use of words and phrases borrowed from the 
French, which in his time began to be most abundantly 
introduced into the colloquial language. On this account 
we find that his writings contain a much greater mixture of 
French than those of his predecessors. With him, nouns 
and adjectives have scarcely undergone any alteration. 
Thus, for instance, in the " Canterbury Tales," verse 3, we 
find veine ; 4, vertue ; 7, tendre ; 9, melodie ; 24, compagnie ; 
25, aventure ; 28, chambres ; 60, many a noble armee ; 61 f 
mortal bat allies ; 72, a verray par fit gentil knyght ; 422, a 
verray par fit practisour ; 483 and 484, Benigne he was and 
wonder diligent ; and in adversitee ful pacient ; 817, And 
sette a souper at a certain pris. Verbs have only changed 
their terminations : perced, engendred, inspired y etc. Ad- 
verbs have taken the English terminations only : so in 
Verses 339 and 340, He held opinion that plein delit was 
veraily felicite parfit. Even we find verament in verse 
12,643. Sometimes the author gives us whole phrases bor- 
rowed literally from the French : Verse 1,157, P ar amour \ 
I loved hire; 13,750, I hope par ma foy ; 13,819, Now hold 
your mouth pour charite, and in the following lines : 

and elks certeyn were they to blame : 
it is ful fair to been yclep^d ma dame y 

A margaret in praising the daiesye, 
methought among hire notes swete 
she sayd si douce est la margaruite. 



340 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

And sikerly she was of great desport, 
and ivXplesaunt and amy able of port j 
and peyned hire to countrefete chiere 
of Court, and been estatlich of manere ; 
and to been holden digne of reuere?ice. 

The language of Chaucer has been subject to two very 
different judgments, and as these relate immediately to 
the formation of the English language, they require some 
special mention here. His contemporaries, and those who 
lived nearest to his time, Walton, Occleve, Lydgjate, speak 
with rapture of the elegance and splendor of his diction, 
and universally extol him as the " Chief poet of Britain," 
" Flower of eloquence," " Honor of the English tongue," 
and his words as " the gold dew drops of speech," while 
Milton styles him the " Well of English undefiled," and 
Spenser, who professes to have studied him with very mi- 
nute and particular attention, says that " In him the pure 
well-head of poesy did dwell," but the critics of the sev- 
enteenth century accuse him of having corrupted and de- 
formed the English idiom by an immoderate introduction 
of French words, 1 and are generally agreed that he was 
either totally ignorant or negligent of metrical rules, and 
that his verses are frequently deficient by a syllable or 
two in measure. 2 

This opinion remained generally current until contro- 
verted by Tyrwhitt, in " an essay on the language and 
versification of Chaucer," in which, after a complete anal- 
ysis of the English grammar as it existed during the four- 
teenth century, he shows that the fault lies, not with 
Chaucer, but partly with the critics themselves, from their 
obvious ignorance of the grammar and pronunciation of 
his time, and partly, also, with the copyists, from whose 
incorrect manuscripts the first editions were printed. 3 

1 Some few ages after (the conquest) came the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, who, 
writing his poesies in English, is of some called the first illuminator of the 
English tongue. Of their opinion I am not, though I reverence Chaucer as an 
excellent poet for his time. He was, indeed, a great mingler of English with 
French, unto which language (by like for that he was descended of French, or 
rather Wallon race) he carried a great affection. — Verstegan, c. 7. 

Ex hoc malesano novitatis pruritu, Belgae Gallicas voces passim civitate sua 
donando patrii sermonis puritatem nuper non leviter inquinarunt et Chaucerus 
poeta, pessimo exemplo, integris vocum plaustris ex eadem Gallia in nostram 
linguam invectis, earn, nimis antea a Normannorum victoria adulteratam, omni 
fere nativa gratia et nitore spoliavit. — Skinner, Etymol. L. A. Praf. 

2 Dryden, Preface to his Fables. 

3 I fynde many of the sayd bookes, whiche wryters have abrydgyd it, and 
many thynges left out, and in some places have sette certayn versys that he 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



341 



The strange license, in which subsequent editors appear 
to have indulged, of lengthening and shortening the au- 
thor's words, according to their own fancy, and even of 
adding words of their own, 1 has further contributed to 
alter the original text, and to leave in its stead only a spu- 
rious translation, full of anomalies, with which it is the 
more unfair to charge the author, as he himself has point- 
ed out the danger of having the metre of his verses spoiled, 
either by reading or writing, at a time when the language, 
being in its forming stage, was subject to so many dialectic 
differences, 2 and when, without any settled method of or- 
thography, the copying of his works was too often left to 
the discretion of the several writers and transcribers. 3 

As to his having corrupted the language by the im- 
moderate introduction of French words, the preceding 
pages have shown that the English language had certain- 
ly imbibed a strong tincture of French long before the 
age of Chaucer, and that consequently he ought not to be 
censured as the importer of words and phrases which he 
only used after the example of his predecessors, and in 
common with his contemporaries, as proved by their writ- 
ings. But if we could for a moment suppose the contrary ; 

never made ne sette in hys booke ; of whyche bookes so incorrecte was one 
broughte to me vj yere passyd, whiche I supposed had been veray true and cor- 
recte, and accordyng to the same I dyde do enprynte a certayn nomber of them, 
whyche anon were solde to many and dyverse gentyl men, of whom one gentyl 
man cam to me, and sayd that this booke was not according in many places 
unto the booke that Gefferey Chaucer had made, etc. — Preface to Caxton's 2d 
edition of the Canterbury Tales. 

1 In attempting the correction of old manuscripts, the safest is to follow the 
rule of Coleridge : That when we meet an apparent error in a good author, we 
are to presume ourselves " ignorant of his understanding, until we are certain 
that we understand his ignorance." 

2 And, for there is so greate diversite 
in Englysh, and in writynge of our tonge 
so pray I God that none mis-write thee, 
ne thee mis-metre for default of tonge ; 
and redde where so thou be, or elles song, 
that thou be understood, God I beseech ! 

Troilus and Cress., B. V, v. 1803-1808. 
8 That the author was very particular as to his own orthography, and care- 
fully revised the copies of his works, appears from the following address to his 
scribe : 

Adam Scryveyn, if ewer it the byfalle 
Boea? or Troylus for to wryten newe, 
under thy lokkes thou most haw the scalle, 
but after my makyng thou wryte more trewe : 
so oft a day^ i mot thy werk renewe, 
it to corecte and ek to rubb<? and scrape ; 
and al is thurgh thy neglygena? and rape. 



342 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



if, in spite of all historical evidence, we could suppose that 
the English idiom in the age of Chaucer remained pure 
and unmixed as it was spoken in the courts of Alfred or 
Egbert, and that French was still a foreign, or at least a 
separate, language, it would seem incredible that a poet, 
writing in English upon the most familiar subjects, would 
stuff his compositions with French words and phrases 
which, upon the above supposition, must have been unin- 
telligible to the greatest part of his readers ; or if he had 
been so absurd, it is not conceivable that he should have 
immediately become not only the most admired, but also 
the most popular writer of his time and country. 

The above considerations will suffice to show that 
Chaucer must have written in the current idiom of his 
time ; while from his own recommendation of the use of 
the mother-tongue} and his constant ridicule of the prevail- 
ing fashion of using French on all occasions, we may even 
conclude that his English, though containing a greater 
proportion of French than that of his predecessors, is more 
free from foreign phraseology than was the spoken lan- 
guage at the end of the fourteenth century in London, 
his ordinary place of residence ; 2 at all events, far from 
having corrupted the English idiom by an immoderate 
mixture of French, he, on the contrary, deserves the credit 
of having greatly contributed to its improvement, by giv- 
ing a proper direction to a practice which had become 
national, and which it was neither his wish nor in his power 
to avert. It is thus that we may account for the great 
popularity his works enjoyed among his contemporaries, 
and for their influence on the progress of the English lan- 
guage during the ensuing century, when French words, 
more discriminately used, and more judiciously applied, 
began to form nearly in their present sense, a permanent 
part of the English vocabulary. 

In Chaucer's time the study of French had ceased to 
be obligatory in English schools. Trevisa, writing in 1385, 
mentions that at that time, in all the grammar schools of 
England, the teaching of French was left off, and that 

1 Let clerkes endyten in Latyn for they have the propertye of science and 
the knowinge in that facultye ; and lette Frenchmen in theyr Frenche also en- 
dyte theyr queynt termes, for it is kyndly to theyr mouthes ; and let us shewe 
our fantasyes in suche wordes as we lerneden of our dames tonge. — Prol. to 
Test, of Love. 

2 He calls himself a Londenois or Londoner, in the Testament of Love, Book 
i, p. 325 ; and in another passage, p. 321, speaks of London as the place of his 
engendrure. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



343 



of English substituted. He even names the patriotic in- 
structor who first made the change. 1 But three hundred 
years of foreign dominion had been fatal to the old na- 
tional speech of England. Every ear was now familiar 
with the sound of French, every one knew something of 
the language, and few there were who liked to admit their 
ignorance of it. Those who, by their attention to busi- 
ness, had met with success, and could afford to live in com- 
fort, affected in general the style and manners of the Nor- 
mans, and as a matter of gentility usually spoke French, 
a knowledge of which was lookea upon by them as " the 
badge of a gentleman." Others less favored, but not the 
less tenacious on points of etiquette and fashion as regards 
the current mode of speech, adorned their English phrases 
with all the French at their command ; and so common 
had become the practice during the fourteenth century 
that even countrymen indulged in it " with great earnest- 
ness," says a contemporary author, " in order to be thought 
the more of." 2 

The first effect of this reckless practice of mixing up 
French and English had been to hasten the decomposition 
of the native speech which, already well advanced by the 
time of the conquest, was thereby only hurried on still 
faster, and rendered more complete. Without schools or 
cultivated classes, to keep up a standard of correct speak- 
ing and writing was utterly impossible ; the numerous 
dialects of the country, variously affected by a state of 
things which allowed but little intercommunication, be- 
came more and more dissimilar in their vocabulary as 
well as in their grammar; and so great was at one time 
this difference between the language of the north and that 
spoken in the southern districts of England, that works 
composed in one dialect had to be translated in order to 
be understood by people speaking the other. Between 
these two extremes stood the language of the Midland 
counties, partaking of the peculiarities of both, but also 
varying so much in different localities as to establish a 
distinction between East Midland and West Midland in 
reference to the speech of the inhabitants. 

Owing to this diversity of dialects, and the generally 
unsettled state of the language, the English vocabulary of 
those days was very much mixed up, and presented a mass 
of anomalies of which many have remained to this day in 

1 See page 263. * See page 266. 



344 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

the language. Though this remark applies to words of 
Saxon, as well as of Norman origin, it is the latter especial- 
ly that have undergone strange transformations. Who- 
ever has noticed how foreign words are apt to be mispro- 
nounced, even nowadays, by persons who ought to know 
better, will readily understand how French words fared in 
the mouths of those who, without special instruction, tried 
only to imitate the sounds they heard to the best of their 
ability. Thus, from sol they made soil ; from reculer, recoil ; 
pauvre became poor; huissier, an usher; tailleur, a tailor; 
and boucher, a butcher. Henrter is to hurt ; bouger, to budge ; 
cueillir, to cull ; and nourrice is a nurse. Cotelette is a cut- 
let ; e'crevisse, a crayfish ; couleuvrine, a culverin ; belle-Jleur, 
a bell-flower; and court e-pointe, a counterpane. Contre- 
dance has made country dance ; dame-jeanne, demi-john ; 
quen dirai-je, quandary ; and quelque c/iose, kickshaw. 
Couvre-feu has changed into curfew ; and couvre-chef into 
kerchief, which, in its compound form of " pocket-hand- 
kerchief," would really mean " a covering of the head, car- 
ried in the hand, and small enough to be put into the 
pocket." In the same way we may account for the mis- 
pronunciation of such names as Beauchamp, which has be- 
come Beachame ; Belvoir, which has become Beaver ; Saint 
Denys, Sidney ; Saint Jean, Singon ; Saint Maur, Seymour ; 
Marie-la-Bonne, Malbone ; Cholmondclcy, Chumley ; Chateau- 
vert, Shotover ; Route du roi, rotten row ; and, as we have 
seen already, of Beau Desert, which is now called and even 
written " Buzzard." All this mainly originated in the 
accent being transferred, in English fashion, to the first 
part of the word, and refers to a time when, in the absence 
of regular instruction, people used foreign terms as they 
heard them used by others. Words thus taken up have 
to pass through many mouths before they enter into gen- 
eral circulation, and in the process of assimilation they 
are apt to lose a good deal of their sound and even of 
their meaning. This is always the case in any living lan- 
guage, but especially so when a language is in the course 
of its formation. Learned mainly by the ear, and but lit- 
tle by the eye, new words, on becoming popular, are sub- 
ject to all the freaks and fancies of a practical out igno- 
rant people who, in their attempts at fine speaking, do 
not always succeed in making nice distinctions. Not only 
are most foreign words disfigured and mispronounced, 
but often their sense is strangely distorted. Sometimes 
their meaning is widened, and then again it is narrowed. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 345 

Some words are made to serve higher and nobler pur- 
poses ; others are degraded to lower and humbler uses ; 
while not a few, from some simple association or childish 
misconception, are tortured and twisted into quite fantas- 
tic shapes to suit the popular understanding. Thus, the 
" buffeteers " of the English royal household go by the 
name of beefeaters of the queen. The ship Bellerophon was 
only known to British sailors as the Billy ruffian, the ALolus 
as the Alehouse, and the Courageux as the Currant juice, in 
the same way as the Spanish chief Zumalacarregui was 
invariably called Zachary Macaulay by the British soldiers. 
There is a kind of shawl made of the very fine wool of a 
goat in Thibet, called " cachemire goat." This delicate, 
soft texture is usually spoken of as a camel's hair shawl, 
that is, a shawl made of the hair of a beast whose coat is 
coarser than that of a mule. It is like the cook speaking 
of sparrow-grass when she means " asparagus," or like the 
French sick-nurse asking for de Veaud'anon, instead of " lau- 
danum," at the druggist's. 1 

This instinctive causativeness of the human mind, this 
perpetual endeavor to find a reason or a plausible expla- 
nation for everything, has corrupted many of the words 
which we have in daily use, and a large allowance for 
this source of error must be made when we are investi- 
gating the original 'forms of ancient names. No cause has 
been more fruitful in producing corruptions than popular 
attempts to explain from the vernacular, and to bring into 
harmony with a supposed etymology, names whose real 
explanation is to be sought in some language known only 
to the educated. Mistakes of this kind we occasionally 
hear, and we only laugh at them, but in former times, when 
literary ignorance was widespread, such distorted names 
readily found a permanent place in the national vocabu- 
lary. Thus we may see Latin words, mispronounced by 
Celts and Franks, becoming French ; and in the same way 
French words, in Saxon mouths, have become English, but 

1 In Canada, where an English-speaking population is encroaching on the 
old French settlers, the same process of verbal translation is going on. Les 
Che'neaux, or channels, on the River Ottawa, are now the snows. So Les Chats 
and Les Joachims, on the same river, are respectively becoming the shaws and 
the swashings, while a mountain near the head of the Bay of Fundy, called the 
Chapeau Dieu, from the cap of cloud which often overhangs it, is now known 
as the Shepody Mountain. The River Quah-Tah-Wah-Am-Quah-Duavic % in 
New Brunswick, probably the most jaw-breaking compound in the " Gazetteer," 
has 4iad its name justifiably abbreviated into the Petamkediac, which has been 
further transformed by the lumberers and hunters into the Tom Kedgwick. 

24 



346 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

often so disguised by spelling as to conceal their true ori- 
gin from all but those interested in etymological studies. 1 
Thus we have: prayer, friar, faith, vow, prow, newel, jewel, 
plush, flush, money, purse, pouch, pocket, jacket, coat, vest, boot, 
gaiter, gauntlet, squire, chief, tower, power, flower, pansy, car- 
ry, parry, bowel, towel, surgeon, sturgeon, reason, treason, faint, 
quaint, puny, puppy, nephew, aunt, people, waif, wafer, waiter, 
butcher, butler, purveyor, feast, beast, ostler, jailor, wicket, 
gimlet, cease, lease, clear, cheer, and hundreds of others 
which, thus disfigured both in spelling and pronunciation, 
have acquired the right of citizenship in times gone by, 
and now bear the mint-mark of true national coinage. 
All such words are of popular English origin ; they were 
learned by ear from people who themselves spoke very 
crude dialects, and were current among the English 
long before Chaucer wrote ; hence they differ greatly in 
sound as well as in their written appearance from those 
French words that subsequently found their way into 
the English vocabulary, and which, learned from books 
more than from sound, have kept closer to their orig- 
inal forms. Such are those in general that terminate 
in al, el, cle, die, pie, tre, able, ible, oble, uble, an, ain, ean, 
ian, ace, ade, age, ance, ancy, ence, ency, e?iger, asm, ism, ate, 
ent, lent, ment, et, ette, esse, esque, ic, ice, ics, He, ine, ise, ist, 
ite, ive, ous, eous, ious, ose, son, skion, sion, tion, ation, ar, er, 
or, our, ary, ory, ee, eer, ier, aign, eign, ude, tude, ule, ure, y, 
ty, ity, etc. Words thus terminated, which are quite nu- 
merous in English, are all derived from the French, with 
such differences of spelling as were necessary to represent 
their English pronunciation. Though vastly different in 
character from those that are of popular origin, and mixed 
up with Saxon words from the people's language, they 
are an indispensable part of the vocabulary of modern 
English, to represent the more delicate shades of thought, 
and to express the complex relations of the higher men- 
tal conceptions. 

Such have been, in the main, the effects of the Norman 
conquest upon the native speech of England, and have 
been summed up as follows by J. Earle, late Professor of 
Anglo-Saxon in the University of Oxford : " The French 
language," he says, " has not only left indelible traces on 
the English, but has imparted to it some of its leading 
characteristics. It is not merely that there are many 

1 See Appendix, Chap, ii, Etymologies. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 347 

English words of which the derivation can not be clearly 
specified, owing to the intimate blending of the French 
and English languages at the time when such words were 
stamped with their present form and signification. The 
Romanesque influence has penetrated deeper than to the 
causing of a little etymological perplexity. It has modi- 
fied the vocalization, it has softened the obstinacy of the 
consonants, it has given to the whole language a new com- 
plexion. ... If we want to describe the transition from 
the Saxon state-language of the eleventh century to the 
Court-English of the fourteenth, and to reduce the de- 
scription to its simplest terms, it comes in fact just to this : 
That a French family settled in England, and edited the 
English language." 

2. Loss of Inflections and Grammatical Changes in Anglo- 
Saxon before and after the Norman Conquest. 

While thus noticing all that can be laid to Norman in- 
fluence, which undoubtedly was as great as it has been 
lasting, we must not lose sight of other influences which 
had been at work long before the conquest, and brought 
on changes which were not less instrumental than the in- 
fusion of foreign words and phrases in transforming the 
old Anglo-Saxon into modern English. 

In the first place words, like coins, get worn away by 
the wear and tear of ages ; and we may well believe that 
the forms of speech that were current in England from 
the eighth to the eleventh century were, on that account 
alone, vastly different from those that prevailed during 
the three centuries preceding. The original Saxon was a 
homogeneous language, abounding in inflections, prefixes, 
and suffixes, and forming its compounds and derivatives 
entirely from its own resources. In synthetic languages, 
that is languages thus inflected, the terminations must be 
pronounced with marked distinctness, as these contain 
the correlations of ideas. This implies a measured and 
careful pronunciation, against which the effort for ease 
and rapidity of utterance is constantly struggling, while 
indolence and carelessness continually compromise it. It 
is to be inferred, therefore, that in the seventh and eighth 
centuries, when the written language began to make its 
appearance, the spoken tongue had already lost many of 
its earlier forms, which to some extent were still pre- 
served in writing. Although the arts of reading and 



348 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

writing- were at that time cultivated only by the privi- 
leged few, yet with a good literary standard, such as was 
then springing up, the language might have maintained 
its inflectional character for an indefinite period, and 
would undoubtedly have done so but for the terrible ca- 
lamities that ere long befell the English nation. Toward 
the end of the eighth century, it will be remembered, 
the piratical heathens, known by the general name of 
Danes, began their raids on the English coasts. These 
isolated attacks were, as we have seen, followed by for- 
midable invasions, which resulted in the establishment of 
extensive Danish and Norwegian populations in the east- 
ern and northern parts of England and in the south of 
Scotland. For more than two hundred years these de- 
stroying savages were the curse of the country. Wher- 
ever they set their foot, progress of every kind was ar- 
rested, culture was blasted, and the hope of civilization 
died away. By their indomitable courage, energy, and 
tenacity, they soon overpowered the Saxon tribes, already 
much weakened by long internecine strife ; and as they 
steadily kept coming in numbers large enough, first to 
compel a division of the country, and finally even to place 
their own king on the English throne, they necessarily 
exerted a great influence on the language of those locali- 
ties at least in which they permanently settled. Although 
the Anglian dialect spoken in these parts is believed to 
have been more akin to the Old Norse idiom of the new 
settlers than that of other Saxon tribes — partly by a like 
disposition to neglect inflections, partly by a similarity of 
words, pointing to a common ancestry — yet lapse of time 
and separation in space, as well as a difference of circum- 
stances under which each nation had lived and expanded 
for centuries, must have developed a corresponding dif- 
ference in speech as well as customs, when they met 
again on English soil. But so great was the diversity of 
local dialects in those days, that a little more or less of 
foreign accent or divergence from the customary speech, 
in a stranger, was hardly noticed ; and so the very simi- 
larity of the Norse and Anglian dialects would, by fa- 
cilitating intercourse, only hasten the usual result of two 
kindred tribes being thrown together. When such an 
intermingling takes place, the endings of the verb and 
the substantive are not always caught, and therefore 
drop speedily out of the mouth of rude and ignorant 
warriors and peasants. Influences of this kind, more than 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 349 

any other, tend to break up the grammatical forms of a 
language, and when accompanied, as they usually are, 
by an extensive intermixture of words, they may even 
change its character entirely. That a large number of 
Danish words found their way into the spoken tongue 
there can be no doubt, for, although there is no contem- 
porary evidence to prove this, it was made evident at a 
later period, when the dominion of the Norman had over- 
laid all preceding conquests, and the new language began 
to emerge from the old, when Danish words in any num- 
ber made their appearance in books in familiar phrase, 
showing that they had been for a long time current in the 
language. 

In the same way, the tendency in English to give each 
word its chief accent at or near the beginning, and to 
suffer the concluding syllables to fall into obscurity, may 
be traced to Danish influence. Even before the con- 
quest, forms which originally had strong and distinct ter- 
minations appeared with these endings leveled into some- 
thing like a silent e ; but during the illiterate period of 
the language, after the conquest, this careless obscuring 
of the terminal vowels rapidly increased, and by de- 
grees became universal. During the twelfth century, 
while this change was mainly going on, we find great 
confusion of grammatical forms, the full inflections of old 
English standing side by side in the same sentence with 
the leveled ones of the Anglo-Danish forms of speech ; 
but very shortly after the year 1200, in the south, and 
considerably before that date in the north, the leveling of 
inflections was complete, and this fact conclusively proves 
that the changes which have transformed the English lan- 
guage from an inflectional into a nearly non-inflectional 
idiom, were well established long before the Normans be- 
gan to speak the language. Indeed, changes of this kind 
could only take place among those who spoke the lan- 
guage, not among those who were ignorant of it ; and if 
further changes of the same nature afterward occurred 
in English, it was undoubtedly from habit and the in- 
herent tendencies of the language, far more than from 
any outside influence, such as in other respects affected 
the condition of the people who spoke it. 

Besides, the written Anglo-Saxon had its prepositions 
as well as its inflections, from which it is to be supposed 
that in the spoken language the use of the former was far 
more frequent. The following piece, taken from Earle's 



350 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

" Philology of the English Language," will serve to illus- 
trate this use of inflections and prepositions in written 
Anglo-Saxon : 

M Upahafem/w eagum on pa " With uplifted eyes to the 

heahnys^ and apenedum ear- height and with outstretched 

mum ongan gebidd^/z mid ]>zera arms she began to pray with 

welenz styrung^w on stilnes^. stirrings of the lips in stillness. 

" Here we observe, in the first place, that terminations 
in the elder speech are replaced by prepositions in the 
younger. ' Upahafen&;/z eagum ' is ' with uplifted eyes,' 
and ' tyenedum earmum ' is ' with outstretched arms' ; and 
the infinitive termination of the verb ' gebidan ' is in Eng- 
lish represented by the preposition to. 

" We observe, however, in the second place, that on 
the Saxon side also there are prepositions among the in- 
flections. The phrases ' o?i )>a heahnys^,' ' mid .... styrun- 
gum,' 'on stilnes^,' are at once phrasal and inflectional. 
This indicates a new growth in the language : the inflec- 
tions are no longer what once they were, self-sufficient. 
Prepositions are brought to their aid, and very soon the 
whole weight of the function falls on the preposition. 
The inflection then lives on as a familiar heirloom in the 
language, an ancient fashion, ornamental rather than neces- 
sary. At the first great shake which such a language gets, 
after it is well furnished with prepositions, there will most 
likely be a great shedding of inflections. And so it hap- 
pened to our language after the shock of the conquest." 

Distinct from these inflectional changes, though inti- 
mately connected therewith, are the great phonetic 
changes which have made English words so vastly differ- 
ent from their Anglo-Saxon originals. That these changes, 
partly due to time, partly to Danish influence, were fur- 
ther accelerated and rendered more complete by the ex- 
tensive use of Norman words and phrases, there can be 
no doubt ; but even so, they were not the less the work of 
the English-speaking people, who shaped their own speech 
to please themselves, and according to certain national tra- 
ditions and tendencies of utterance with which the Nor- 
mans had little or nothing to do. 

It was, therefore, not the influx of Norman words and 
phrases which affected the native language in the first in- 
stance. For more than two centuries after the conquest 
we find but few French words in native compositions, 
and it was only in the fourteenth century, when the Nor- 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



351 



mans began to make English their own speech, that the 
excessive admission of foreign words and phrases could 
have sensibly affected the existing forms of language ; 
other influences had been at work long before the con- 
quest, to which this event gave only a further impulse and 
a more definite direction. Among these influences none 
was greater than the Danish occupation, which left its 
traces in every corner of the land, and which, by an in- 
termingling of Anglian and Scandinavian dialects, greatly 
added to the general confusion, which finally resulted in 
the breaking up of almost every grammatical form of 
speaking and of writing. If, after the Norman conquest, 
writing well nigh ceased among the native English for 
want of readers, the people, nevertheless, continued to 
speak their language just as they did before, and while 
the ancient style of writing grew more and more out of 
date, until after three or four generations it became utter- 
ly lost and obsolete, it was in the spoken language that 
the transformation of Anglo-Saxon into English took place, 
by that process of gradual change of which the princi- 
ple was inherent in the language itself, and which mani- 
fested itself all at once in the uninflected form in which 
the language reappears in the compositions of the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries. 

And here we must remark that after all there is no 
proof of the latter form having been really new, or of re- 
cent origin, about the time of the conquest. All that we 
can assert is, that soon after that date it first appears in 
writing. If it was ever so employed before, no earlier 
specimens of it have been preserved. It was undoubtedly 
the form of the language popularly in use at the time when 
it thus first presents itself in the twelfth century ; but had 
it not existed as an oral dialect long before ? May it not 
have so existed in all its various forms from the remotest 
antiquity, together with the more artificial form which was 
exclusively, or at least usually, employed in writing ? This 
is all the more probable, as so we find it in other languages 
in which, from more ample records, the fact is better 
proved. Classical Greek and Latin, for instance, such as 
we find in books, have always been accompanied each by 
another form of speech of loose texture, and more of an 
analytical character, which served for the ordinary oral 
intercourse of the less educated population, and of which 
we have still some vestige or resemblance left in the 
modern Romaic and Romance idioms. At all events, the 



352 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



rise of what had long been a merely oral dialect into a lan- 
guage capable of being employed in literature, and of be- 
ing thereby gradually so trained and improved as to sup- 
plant and take the place of the ancient, more highly in- 
flected, and otherwise more artificial literary language of 
the country, is well illustrated by what is known to have 
happened in France, where the Lingua Romano, Rustica — 
the peasant's Latin — after having been for a long time only 
orally used, came to be written as well as spoken, and, 
having been first taken into the service of the more popu- 
lar kinds of literature, ended by becoming the language 
of all literature, and the only national speech. 1 So in Eng- 
land there may have been in use for colloquial purposes 
a dialect of a similar character alongside of the written 
form known as the Anglo-Saxon language ; and the two 
forms of language, the regular and the irregular, the 
learned and the vulgar, may have subsisted together for 
many centuries, till there came a crisis which, for a time, 
laid the entire fabric of the old national civilization in the 
dust, when the rude and hardy character of the one car- 
ried it through the storm which the more delicate struct- 
ure of the other could not stand. 

Thus when, in the twelfth century, the English reap- 
peared in writing, it was the popular language of the time 
as spoken in the various parts of the country, and with 
but few and feeble traces of the elaborate system of in- 
flections found in the writings of Alfred. Each man who 
wrote, wrote in the speech of his own district ; and each 
man followed the spelling which he thought would best 
express the sound of his own particular dialect and mode 
of pronunciation. Nor could he be assisted much, in 
points of style or grammar, by any previous literary works 
of merit that could serve him as models. Even in the 
best of Anglo-Saxon writings, we find the greatest license 
of language, the greatest variety of spelling. All the 
vowels were interchanged, and, within the limits of their 
particular class, the consonants very often. " The arrange- 
ment of the period," says Marsh, " the whole syntax, had 
been evidently already influenced, and the native in- 
flections — if, indeed, they ever had been molded into a 
harmonious system — diminished in number, variety, and 
distinctness. The tendencies which have resulted in the 
formation of modern English had been already impressed 

1 See page 475. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



353 



upon the Anglo-Saxon long before the Norman con- 
quest." 1 

The differences of form which distinguish the Anglo- 
Saxon idiom from modern English are pointed out by 
Sharon Turner as follows : 2 

" Placing their words out of the natural order of 
their meaning, and thus delaying unnecessarily their com- 
prehension, was the habit of the Anglo-Saxon writers. 
The first beauty of a language is to communicate the 
thought correctly ; the next, to convey every part of it as 
rapidly as the mind that hears can comprehend it. But 
the latter part is prevented, and the former frequently con- 
fused, in every language in which the words do not follow 
each other in the natural stream of thought. The Latin 
language is as defective in this point as the Anglo-Saxon. 
The Romans, like their Spartan ancestors, disdained the 
grace of easy comprehension. As the natives of Lacede- 
mon affected an artificial brevity, the Romans adopted 
that unnatural dislocation of their words, which consti- 
tutes their classical corruption ; an arbitrary habit which 
sometimes may contribute to rhetorical euphony, but 
which makes the construction difficult, and always re- 
tards and frequently obscures the intelligibility of the sen- 
tence. In the Anglo-Saxon, the same practice, but with- 
out the rhythmical effect, and with no selection for any 
purpose of strength or beauty, perpetually occurs. 

Sometimes the comparative adjective is postponed : 

Thy sum swithe gelic. To these very like. 

At other times the superlative : 
Menn tha leofeastan. Men the dearest. 

And often the verb : 

Tha him lareowas secgan. Then to him teachers say. 

Syththan he to thy sum lyfe com. Since he to his life came. 

We sceolon urne scyppend lufian. We should our maker love. 

Tha wolde God hi fordon. Then would God them destroy. 

If two verbs occur, the auxiliary, which ought to have 
preceded ; is placed last : 

Tha menn for nytenesse misfaran Then men for ignorance offend 
ne sceolon. not shall. 

1 G. P. Marsh, Lectures on the English Language, p. 132. 
3 Sharon Turner, History of England, Part VI, ch. i. 



354 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



Sometimes the verb is advanced, and its nominative 
cases are thrown back : 

Feollan cyrcan and hus and comon Fell churches and houses, and 
wilde beran and wulfan. ' came wild bears and wolves. 

The auxiliary verb is often separated from its partici- 
ple by intervening expressions, and the sentence is ended 
with the participle : 

ThcBs cyninges botl wearth mid That king's dwelling was with 
heofendlicwn fyre forbcerned. heavenly fire burned. 

Of two connected substantives, the genitive case first 
occurs, and the governing noun is postponed : 

Tha bead se bisceop Ma?nertus Then ordered the Bishop Ma- 
threora daga fasten. mertus of three days a fasting. 

These instances are sufficient to show the peculiar and 
artificial style of the Anglo-Saxon prose, which occasions 
its humble meaning to linger with a drawling insipidity, 
making that which is always feeble still feebler, and di- 
minishing its perspicuity. 

Another pervading character was the use and the in- 
flection into cases of the two articles, the and a ; also of 
its pronouns ; and the partial conjugation of its verbs, 
especially in the imperfect tense. To this we may add 
its invariable use of inflections for the genitive case, both 
in the singular and in the plural. If we also recollect its 
uniform expression of our with by its mid, and the appli- 
cation of its with to signify against ; its use of my eel for 
much; swithe for very ; swa swa for so as; se for he, the, and 
that; and heo for she ; hem for them; heora for their; and 
ure for our ; and that our substantives in ness are usually 
nysse in Saxon ; and our adverbs ending in ly are termi- 
nated in lice by our ancestors ; if we keep these few char- 
acterizing circumstances in memory, though they are not 
the whole of the peculiarities of the Anglo-Saxon, we shall 
be able to understand some of the leading points of the 
changes which marked its transition into our present 
English. 

The Anglo-Saxon syntax was also singularly anomalous 
and disorderly. Its prepositions were used as if possessed 
of the power of altering the cases of the nouns they gov- 
erned, as occurs in Latin and Greek ; but so irregular and 
capricious were the principles of this government, that in 
the same sentence the same preposition throws its con- 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 355 

nected substantives into four different cases. 1 To the con- 
fusion of all regular grammar, almost all its prepositions 
have this inconceivable power. With not less perversity, 
we find plural adjectives with singular substantives. Some- 
times the article and the adjective are inflected, and not 
the substantive ; and sometimes neither the article nor the 
substantive, but only the adjective. That the substantive 
should agree with the adjective in either case or number, 
seems to have been quite a matter of chance ; and whether 
nouns should be inflected at all, or in what case, was a 
question which no fixed rule appears to have decided. 

That amid this confusion of grammar the people could 
have always correctly understood each other, may be 
reasonably doubted. The use of anomalies in language 
may be so uniform as to give the irregularity a definite 
meaning ; and, although more troublesome to learn, yet, 
when learned, they are as intelligible as regular conju- 
gations. But the Saxon anomalies of grammar seem to 
have been so capricious and so confused, that their mean- 
ing must often have been rather conjectured than actually 
understood ; and hence it is, that their poetry is often so 
unintelligible to us. There is no settled grammar to guar- 
antee the meaning ; we can not guess so well nor so rapidly 
as they who, talking every day in the same phrases, were 
familiar with the differences of meaning depending on in- 
tonation. Or perhaps when the harper recited they often 
caught his meaning from his gestures, felt it when they 
did not understand it, and thought that his obscurity was 
the result of superior learning. 

One of the first observable steps in the formation of 
English out of Saxon was the discontinuance of the Anglo- 
Saxon inversions. As the earliest compositions in the 
English language are almost all translations from the 
French, we are indebted for that improvement to the Nor- 
mans, whose writers are remarkable for their unaffected, 
plain, and comprehensible diction. Their words are usual- 
ly placed as nature and meaning would station them ; and 
they taught the Anglo-Saxons to untwist their phrases, to 
dismount from their incumbering stilts, and to think and 
speak as simply and as perspicuously as they did. 

As the Anglo-Saxon began to be affected by the Nor- 
man tongue, many other changes followed. The declen- 
sions of the definite article, se, seo> that, were wholly laid 

1 Mid ealr<? thinn? heortaw and mid ezUum mode. — Wanley, Catal. t p. 2. 



356 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

aside ; and its plural nominative, tha, changed into the, be- 
came universally used for every case, gender, and number. 
The simplification of a word so generally and incessantly 
wanted was a great improvement. The disuse of declen- 
sions in the substantives and adjectives, excepting in the 
genitive case, and one variation for the plural was another 
beneficial alteration. The abolition of the terminal cases 
makes the language less monotonous, more simple, more 
pliable, and more precise. Language only needs such 
inflections when, as in the Latin, its words are unnaturally 
placed ; and, on the other hand, inversion becomes a neces- 
sary evil when declensions are used, so that a disagreeable 
monotony may be avoided. The conjugations of the Sax- 
on verbs, which were never numerous, gradually fell also 
into disuse. One simple change was retained to mark the 
past tense ; and this gradually lost all variations of per- 
son or number, except the second person singular, in 
which one inflection is still retained. 

Many verbal changes followed in the other parts of the 
language. The " mid" disappeared and " with " took its 
place, at the same time ceasing to signify " against" Siva 
became so, and innan diminished to in, or varied into the 
compound into ; tJia tha was exchanged for when ; tha for 
then ; Jieo for she. The g softened gradually to the y, and 
the / often to the v. Hit lost its aspirate ; Ich and ic at 
last became // eow, you; gan lessened into go ; gif to if; 
hwa became who; swilc, such; and several other altera- 
tions occurred which need not be detailed here. 

Many of these changes, however, if we except those 
which relate to the construction of the sentence, would 
probably have occurred even if the Norman conquest had 
never taken place, as similar changes have occurred in 
the cognate Dutch, Friesian, and Flemish languages, 
which have been left comparatively undisturbed by for- 
eign influences. Many words are still the same, or differ 
but little, on both sides of the North Sea ; the fishermen 
of Zeeland hold easy communication with those of Mar- 
gate, Ramsgate, and North Foreland, and their accent and 
intonation are identical. None of these people, who in 
their isolated localities may be supposed to have retained 
their ancient forms of speech much longer than their kins- 
men elsewhere, have kept up the old inflections. And so 
it is with all languages ; the tendency always is to lose 
the elaborate systems of inflection with which they began. 1 

1 See Max Miiller, Science of Language, i, 41 ; ii, 185. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



357 



" Men become too idle," says Dr. Freeman, " or too care- 
less to regard minute distinctions of endings, just as they 
become too idle or too careless to give every letter its 
full sound. There is probably no stage of any language 
in which every grammatical nicety is strictly attended to 
in ordinary speech. The real wonder is that they were 
attended to at all without the use of writing. When a 
language is written, when it becomes the instrument of 
literary composition, a check is at once put on the process 
of decay. A standard of correctness is formed which, 
for literary purposes, may last for ages." But such a 
standard of language was lacking in England for centu- 
ries. After the conquest, the native language became 
more and more corrupt, and, in the face of French, pretty 
much what Welsh is now in Wales in the face of English. 
It became a mere patois, 1 a vulgar tongue, the tongue 
which was the daily speech of the poor and less cultivated 
classes. French was the language of polite intercourse, 
and the utter neglect of the native speech hastened still 
further its corruption. Thus, without any thing to check 
the natural tendency to disregard the grammatical delica- 
cies of the written language, old distinctions and inflec- 
tions became less and less observed ; by the end of the 
eleventh century few persons remained who could read 
English ; these may have been taught by men preserving 
the memory of an older time, but when these died out, all 
nicety of language was soon entirely forgotten. 

Thus, during the twelfth century, the process of gram- 
matical corruption was even more busily at work than the 
process of adopting foreign words. The same may be 
said of the thirteenth, though the proportion in which 
foreign words then crept in, and the tendency to make 
them needlessly displace English words, were both con- 
stantly increasing. During all this time the language may 
be looked upon as going through a process of breaking 
up, preparatory to its putting on a new shape. This was 
brought about gradually, and varied much, according to 
the dialectic differences and aptitudes of the people, as 
well as to their opportunities and material condition. 
Thus, in the larger cities of the kingdom, the new lan- 
guage had already assumed certain forms resembling 
modern English, while in others, and especially among 
the country people, it still remained a rude and barren 

1 See page 496. 



358 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

tongue. In the year 1303, Robert of Brunne said: "I 
have put in my plain English, for the love of simple men, 
while others have written and recited with more ele- 
gance ; for I do not address myself to pride and nobility ; 
I write only for those who do not comprehend the foreign 
English." 1 Probably a hundred years later even, his writ- 
ings were much better understood in many parts of Eng- 
land than the more refined works of Gower and Chaucer. 
It is this difference of dialect corresponding to the dif- 
ferent localities, distinctly referred to by Hygden 2 — who 
wrote in the first half of the fourteenth century — and of 
the relative progress made in the new language, that is 
the cause of our often finding two versions of the same 
work — one for the north and another for the south. 3 

The first book, written in a language that may be 
called English, was Sir John Maundeville's " Travels," 
which appeared in 1356. Langland's " Visions of Piers 
Plowman " appeared shortly after. Wyclif's translation 
of the Bible is referred to in 1383. Trevisa's version of 
" Hygden's Polychronicon " came out in 1385, and the 
"Astrolabe" of Chaucer in 1392. A few public instru- 
ments were drawn up in English under Richard II, and 
about the same time it began to be employed in epistolary 

1 Als tha y haf wryten and sayd 

haf y alle in myn Englysshe layd 

in symple speche, as y couthe. 

Y mad noght for no desours, 

ne for seggers no harpours ; 

but for the luf of symple men 

that strange Englysshe can not ken, 

tha y sayd hit for pryde and nobleye. 

Robert of Brunne, Prologue to his Chronicle, p. xcvii. 
2 Also Englysch men, theygh hy hadde fram the bygynnyng thre maner 
speche, Southeron, Northeron, and Myddel speche (in the myddel of the lond), 
as hy come of thre maner people of Germania ; notheless, by commyxstion and 
mellyng, furst with Danes and afterward with Normans, in menye the contray 
longage ys apeyred, and some vseth strange wlaffyng, chyteryng, harryng and 
garryng, grisbittyng. . . . Also, of the forseyde Saxon tonge that ys deled a 
thre, and ys abyde scarslych with feaw vplondysch men, and ys gret wondur ; 
for men of the est with men of the west, as hit were vndur the same party of 
heuene, acordeth more in sounyng of speche than men of the north with men of 
the south ; therfore hyt ys that Mercij, that buth men of Myddel Engelond, as 
hyt were parteners of the endes, vndurstondeth betre the syde longages, North- 
eron and Southeron, than Northeron and Southeron vndurstondeth eyther 
other. — Trevisa's translation of Hygden's Polychronium. 
8 In a wrytte thys ilke I fand 

hymself it wroght I understand ; 

in sotherin Inglys was it drawin, 

and turned ic have it til vr awin 

langage of the northrin lede 

that can na sotherin Inglys rede. — Cursor Mundi, 20,064. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 359 

correspondence of a private nature. The language, how- 
ever, remained far from assuming a definite character, 
and its dialects varied so much in the different provinces 
as to render Chaucer apprehensive of not being generally 
understood. 

The end of the fourteenth century, however, is gener- 
ally considered as the time when the English language 
was substantially formed. By that time the Normans 
had been for about three centuries and a half the rulers of 
the country — a period, be it observed, almost equal to 
that from the discovery of America to the present day. 
They could, therefore, no longer be called foreigners, nor 
was their language any longer a foreign tongue among 
the English people ; indeed, if the general understanding 
of an idiom be taken as a test, it was much less foreign 
than the various dialects that were written and spoken in 
England before the conquest, every one of which would 
have been as unintelligible to an Englishman of the fif- 
teenth century as they are to us at present. French, on 
the contrary, was familiar to every ear, and understood 
by all who laid any claim to refined culture. Still, al- 
though for a long time after, it remained the family lan- 
guage of the men of Norman blood, though it continued 
to be the language of the court and the administration, it 
rapidly lost its importance after the close of the Hundred 
Years' War, which, terminating all English interests bn the 
Continent, confined them exclusively to the British Isles. 
Thus, shortly afterward, speeches in Parliament began to 
be made in English, and occasionally even ministers of 
the crown addressed the House in the new national lan- 
guage. In 1485 statutes ceased to be drawn up in French, 
though in the House of Lords French continued to be 
used to a much later date. Official letters, wills, and law 
reports we find written in it up to the end of the sixteenth 
century ; but as a colloquial language, French remained 
cultivated among the higher classes only, and all that re- 
mains of it now, as an official language in England, are 
some law terms and the few formulas for giving royal 
assent to bills of Parliament. 



360 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



CHAPTER X. 

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND ITS VOCABULARY. 

" Had the Plantagenets," observes Macaulay, " as at 
one time seemed likely, succeeded in uniting all France 
under their government, it is probable that England would 
never have had an independent existence. The noble lan- 
guage of Milton and Burke would have remained a rustic 
dialect, without a literature, a fixed grammar, or a fixed 
orthography, and would have been contemptuously aban- 
doned to the boors. No man of English extraction would 
have risen to eminence except by becoming, in speech 
and habits, a Frenchman." 

It was always thus that the loss of territory by con- 
solidating the English nation, reacted favorably on the 
growth and improvement of the national language. 
Henceforth it became the common speech of Englishmen 
of all ranks, and the use of French no longer marked a 
national, but merely a social or professional distinction. 
In the attainment of this result, and in its comparative 
permanence, the introduction of the printing press, A. D. 
1474, had an important share. By its exclusive patronage 
of the Midland speech, it raised it still higher above the 
sister dialects, and secured its abiding victory. As books 
were multiplied, and found their way into every corner 
of the land, and the art of reading became a more com- 
mon acquirement, men of all parts of the country had 
forced upon their attention the book-English, in which 
alone they were printed. This became, in turn, the model 
for their own writings, and by and by, if they had any 
pretention to education, of their own speech. The writ- 
ten form of the language also tended to a greater uni- 
formity. The book addressed the mind directly through 
the eye instead of circuitously through the eye and ear, 
and thus there was a continual tendency of written words 
and parts of words to be reduced to a single form, and 
that the most usual and the most generally known. 

Great names in literature have always stood as land- 
marks in the history of a language, and to them we must 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 361 

turn to observe the progress and position of the new na- 
tional speech. It is sometimes convenient to call an age 
by the name of its great men ; and as Chaucer stands pre- 
eminent in the fourteenth century, the period during 
which he lived and wrote is called " the Age of Chaucer." 
His influence, indeed, on the English language was im- 
portant and enduring ; he showed what the new language 
was capable of ; and succeeding poets took him as their 
model. The fifteenth century, however, was not favor- 
able to the cultivation of literature ; the people were too 
much engaged in war, and during a great part of the 
century in civil war, to be able to devote time to letters. 
Lydgate, a poet and prose-writer, may represent the lan- 
guage of this century, about the middle of which he flour- 
ished. The language of his poetry is evidently imitated 
from Chaucer, but his prose makes a nearer approach to 
the modern form of English than that of any preceding 
writer of the century. Lydgate uses a great number of 
words which no longer retain their place ; but in what 
are called the Paxton letters, written about 1459, an ^ in 
the works of Fortescue, the great lawyer, a reader of the 
present day finds scarcely any difficulty. In Scotland, at 
the close of the fourteenth and during the fifteenth cent- 
ury, poetry was cultivated to a considerable extent. 
Chaucer found a worthy follower in Barbour, the author 
of " The Bruce " ; and Wynton and James I were poets of 
greater eminence than any of their English contempora- 
ries. 

Meanwhile the language kept fluctuating, and as it 
differed in various districts, so it varied from one genera- 
tion to another. At the end of the fifteenth century, Cax- 
ton declared that, taking up an old book, he found the 
English so rude and broad that he could hardly under- 
stand it; 1 and in his time the dialectic difference was still 
so great as to cause people from another shire to be mis- 
taken for foreigners. Indeed, until the sixteenth century 
the English language, though perfectly suited to all the 
purposes of ordinary life and the lighter forms of litera- 
ture, remained unfit for the treatment of questions such 

1 The Polychronicon, which was the fourth work which Caxton published, 
bears for title : The Polychronycon, conteyning the Berynges and Dedes of many 
Times in eight Bokes. Imprinted by Wyllyam Caxton, after having somewhat 
changed the rude and olde Eng/ysshe, that is to wete certayn Wordes which in 
thyse Dayes be neyther vsed ne vnderstonden. Ended the second Day of Juyll at 
IVestmestre, the xxij yere of the Regne of Kynge Edward the Fourth, and of the 
Incamacyon of oure Lord a Thousand four Hundred four Score and Tweyne. 
25 



362 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

as now everywhere occupied the public mind. Its vo- 
cabulary was still poor, and its form very much unsettled. 
Thus far the language of theology, law, politics, and 
erudition had been Latin ; and so exclusively was the 
study of all these subjects confined to that language, that 
up to the middle of the sixteenth century scarcely a single 
word of Latin origin had come into general use, except 
such as had come through the Norman French. The old 
practice, however, of borrowing from the latter idiom 
whatever words were needed to supply existing deficien- 
cies, and the favor with which the new words of the Re- 
naissance and the Reformation were received by English 
scholars and translators, paved the way for the admission 
of an additional number of French terms, for which there 
were no equivalents in the existing language. On the 
other hand, the revival of the study of the classical writ- 
ers of Greece and Rome, and the translations of their 
works into the vernacular, led to the introduction of a 
large number of new words directly derived from these 
languages, either to express new ideas and objects, or to 
indicate new distinctions or groupings of old ideas. Often, 
also, it seemed as if scholars were so pervaded with the 
form as well as with the spirit of the Old, that it was 
more natural for them to express themselves in words bor- 
rowed from the old than in their native tongue, and thus 
many words of Latin origin were introduced when Eng- 
lish possessed perfectly good equivalents. Moreover, as 
the formation of new words from Latin was constantly 
going on in French as well as. in English, 1 it was not al- 
ways easy, in the absence of a standard dictionary, to dis- 
tinguish whether a word was already accepted and natu- 
ralized, or used for the first time ; whether it was borrowed 
from contemporary French, or had been in the language 
since the Norman period. French words, whether of 
early or recent formation, presented themselves all alike 
as Latin in an altered form, and when used as English 
they supplied precedents and models whereby other Latin 
words could be converted into English whenever required, 
and it is after these models that many Latin words, dur- 
ing and since the sixteenth century, have been fashioned 
into English. While every writer was thus introducing 
new words, according to his idea of their being needed, 
it naturally happened that a large number were never ac- 

1 See pages 5°5-509- 



.AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 363 

cepted by contemporaries or posterity. Indeed, a por- 
tentous list might be made of Latin words thus intro- 
duced, which never had any existence outside of the 
works of those who used them. 

This wholesale importation of Latin words and phrases, 
which none but the learned could understand, ceased by 
the middle of the seventeenth century. As in French so 
in English, Latin words that were necessary and useful 
were retained ; all others were rejected and forgotten. 
Still the fondness for new and foreign terms, which has 
been a characteristic of the English language ever since 
the Norman period, was by no means checked by the re- 
action. New words from other sources continued to be 
introduced, often very needlessly, most of which have dis- 
appeared ; others again, for which there was a real neces- 
sity, have become a permanent part of the vocabulary. 

" Until the end of the fifteenth century," says Marsh, 
" it was only in the theological and moral departments that 
Latin had much direct influence upon English, most of 
the Latin roots introduced into it up to that time having 
been borrowed from the French ; but as soon as the pro- 
fane literature of Greece and Rome became known to 
English scholars through the press, a considerable influx 
of words drawn directly from the classics took place. 
The introduction of this element produced a sort of fer- 
mentation in the English language, a strife between the 
new and old, and both vocabulary and structure continued 
in a very unstable state until the end of the sixteenth 
century, when English became settled in nearly its pres- 
ent form. In the productions of Caxton's press, and, in- 
deed, in the literature of the period, down to and in- 
cluding the time of Lord Berners, whose translation of 
Froissart, perhaps the best English prose that had yet 
been written, and certainly the most delightful narrative 
work in the language, first appeared in 1523, it is scarcely 
possible to find a single word of Latin origin belonging 
to the general vocabulary of English whose form does 
not render it most probable that we received it through 
the French. A hundred years later, on the contrary, we 
meet in every printed page words, either taken directly 
from the Latin, or, what is a very important point, if be- 
fore existing in our literature, reformed in orthography, 
so as to suggest their classical origin. 1 

1 G. P. Marsh, Lectures on the English Language, p. 434. 



364 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

With the sixteenth century commences what may be 
truly called " Modern English." The first prose writer by 
whom this is exhibited is Sir Thomas More, whose lan- 
guage and style make a near approach to those of our own 
day, with this exception, however, that, although one of 
the most learned men of his time, he uses the simplest and 
homeliest English words, and is yet wholly free from that 
excessive use of Latin which disfigures many of his imme- 
diate successors. In the first half of that century, a great 
mania for antiquity had suddenly sprung up in France, 
whence it readily found its way into England. Eras- 
mus tells us that the learned Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, at 
first strenuously resisted this movement, and labored to 
keep the language pure, by recommending the study of 
Chaucer, and the use of such French words only as he 
had made classical. 1 Roger Ascham, the tutor of Lady 
Jane Grey and Queen Elizabeth, in a work written for 
the same purpose, earnestly endeavors to turn his coun- 
trymen from the practice, which by the middle of the six- 
teenth century became fashionable, of introducing into 
their language " the foreign rubbish which did make all 
thinges darke and hard," and which was growing so 
abundantly that it threatened to swamp the native basis 
of the language. Wilson, in his Art of Rhetorique, written 
about 1550, branded this use of French and Latin terms, 
so current at the time, and part of his criticism is well 
worth being remembered even at this day. " Some seke 
so farre for outlandishe Englishe," he says, " that thei for- 
gette altogether their mothers' language. He that cometh 
out of France, will talke Frenche-English, and never blush 
at the matter. The unlearned or foolishe phantasticall 
that smelles but of learnyng will so Latyn their tongues 

1 Erasmus, who was the first who undertook the teaching of Greek at Ox- 
ford, found but few friends to support him, and even an open hostility among 
the clergy. " The priests preached against it as a very recent invention of the 
arch-enemy ; and confounding, in their misguided zeal, the very foundation of 
their faith with the object of their resentment, they represented the New Testa- 
ment itself as an impious and dangerous book, because it was written in that 
heretic language. Even after the accession of Henry VIII, when Erasmus, who 
had quitted Oxford in disgust, returned under his especial patronage, with the 
support of several eminent scholars and powerful persons, his progress was still 
impeded, and the language opposed. The university was divided into parties, 
called Greeks and Trojans, the latter being the strongest from being favored by 
the monks, and the Greeks were driven from the streets with hisses and other 
expressions of contempt. It was not until Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey 
gave their positive and powerful protection that this persecuted language was 
allowed to be quietly studied in the institutions dedicated to learning." — Con- 
stable's Miscellany, vol. xx, p. 147. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 365 

that the simple can not but wonder at their talke, and 
thinke surely thei speake by some revelacion. I know 
them that thinke Rhetorique to stand whollie upon darke 
woordes, and he that can catche an ynkehorne terme by 
the taile, hym thei coumpt to be a fine Englishman and a 
good Rhetorician." In spite of all this, Mulcaster said in 
1582, " The English tung cannot prove fairer than it is at 
this daie." He little knew what was to be the literary 
history of the next thirty years. 

Improvements made in the art of printing made books 
more and more accessible to all, and by their means learn- 
ing became more widely diffused throughout the country. 
The clergy were no longer the only learned men ; the laity 
now began to be animated by a spirit of inquiry and a 
love of knowledge which gave evidence that the germ of 
modern enlightenment had commenced to be active. The 
enthusiasm for ancient learning among English scholars 
reached its height during the second half of the sixteenth 
century. Ronsard 1 had his followers in England as well 
as in France, so that even ladies of the court were accus- 
tomed to amuse themselves with the study of Plato and 
the Greek poets. Queen Elizabeth herself was an excel- 
lent Greek scholar. Meanwhile the Reformation gave 
birth to the theological literature of England. All parties 
in the church defended their peculiar views, and the writ- 
ers, being mostly men of great learning, and constantly 
appealing to works written in the ancient languages, vast 
numbers of words relating to theological questions were 
introduced into English directly from the Latin and Greek, 
almost unconsciously and often very unnecessarily. 

In the same manner a vast number of French words 
referring to matters of religion found their way into the 
language through the translations of Calvin's Institution 
de la Religion Chrestienne, du Bartas's Divine Sepmaine, and 
other works of the kind which were all very familiar to 
English readers. 2 Minor compositions on the subject, small 
theological and moral dialogues and satirical pamphlets, 
destined to captivate as well as to instruct the lower classes, 
also found their translators, and they were all read more 

1 See pages 505-508. 

2 King James VI translated du Bartas's Uranie ; Joshua Sylvester translated 
his Divine Sepmaine in 1598 ; portions of his second Sepmaine were translated 
by Thomas Hudson, William Lisle, and Thomas Winter, all of which were ex- 
tremely popular in England. So were the writings of Agrippa d'Aubigny, and 
du Bellay's Roman Sonnets, sixty of which were translated by Spenser, and pub- 
lished in 1591. See Appendix, page 509. 



366 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

eagerly, and perhaps even more extensively, in England 
than in France itself. Owing to the great interest the 
whole nation took, at that time, in these matters, the words 
used by the foreign writers were often copied, and thus 
found their way into the language, and gradually became 
current among the people. Some of the leading men 
among the orthodox clergy, affecting to disdain the use 
of the vulgar tongue in matters of religious controversy, 
continued to write in Latin, but as the reply generally 
came in English, they were all, one after another, forced 
into the use of the vernacular. The laborious exercise of 
thought on these topics, and the warfare with pen and 
tongue which was the result, could not fail to increase the 
elasticity of the language, and so far tended to improve 
it as an organ of literature. 

The Elizabethan Age, as it has been called, is the period 
at which we must place the completion of the greater part 
of the English language. A galaxy of poets, historians, 
and theologians, has made that age famous, and the popu- 
larity and general diffusion of their immortal works have 
given a great completeness and polish to the language. 
Though the vocabulary of English words has since that 
time been increased by the introduction of many new 
words used in art and science, yet it remains substantially 
the same as it was then spoken and written. It has been 
well said by Johnson that " from the authors who rose in 
the time of Elizabeth, a speech might be formed adequate 
to all purposes of use and elegance. If the language of 
theology were extracted from Hooker and the translators 
of the Bible, the terms of natural knowledge from Bacon, 
the phrases of policy, war, and navigation from Raleigh, 
the dialect of poetry and fiction from Spenser and Sidney, 
and the diction of common life from Shakespeare, few ideas 
would be lost to mankind for want of English words in 
which they might be expressed." 

Though the language for all common purposes was 
now complete, it may be proper to notice the fluctuations 
which took place afterward, as regards the increasing 
number of foreign terms introduced by succeeding writ- 
ers. The struggle of the Commons against the power of 
the Crown in the middle of the seventeenth century turned 
the genius of literary men to political discussion. The 
most famous of those who used their pens in aid of the 
people and Parliament was John Milton, whose remark- 
able prose writings foreshadowed the future glory of 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 367 

" Paradise Lost." No man in England was better ac- 
quainted with ancient literature, or admired and copied 
it more ; hence, though his vocabulary is not particularly 
Latin, yet his sentences show a number of classical con- 
structions in their formation. Jeremy Taylor and Sir 
Thomas Browne, on the contrary, are examples of a most 
extraordinary use of words of classical derivation, which 
they either copied from foreign writers or introduced 
themselves. No fewer than two thousand words used by 
them are no longer retained in the language, and many 
more which they employed are seldom or never used. 
Both these writers flourished during the Protectorate, and 
the early part of the reign of Charles II. Their contem- 
porary Cowley is, in his choice of words, their very op- 
posite. Cowley and Baxter, about 1680, were the heralds 
of a new style that was soon to be brought to further per- 
fection by Dryden, Swift, Addison, and others. 

With the Restoration, in 1660, came manners and morals 
from France which greatly affected the national character, 
and they brought with them new French words and phrases 
which again in a short time became naturalized in English. 
Dryden strove against their introduction, and it is only 
those relating to art, criticism, and fashion, which have 
retained their place. Addison and his friends aimed at 
expressing themselves in the language of cultivated so- 
ciety, and their great merit consists in their correct knowl- 
edge and reproduction of those genuine idiomatic pecul- 
iarities of the language which show its early origin, and 
which had been received into the conversation of intelli- 
gent and educated men. Swift, though often coarse, is 
always vigorous in expression, and he presents a greater 
proportion of good old words and idioms than any writer 
of his time. He was bitterly opposed to the existing fash- 
ion of using foreign words in English sentences, and be- 
rates the clergy for indulging in this deplorable habit. To 
protect the language from further corruption, he proposes 
the establishment of an academy in imitation of the Acade- 
rnie Frangaise. 1 Though it is doubtful whether any such 
institution for English would be useful or desirable, it is 
not the less certain that a combination of eminent men of 
letters, organized on another plan, perhaps, but for a simi- 
lar purpose, might do much to check and correct the abuses 

1 A proposal for correcting, improving, and ascertaining the English tongue ; 
in a letter to the Lord High Treasurer. 



368 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

referred to, and also to bring about some reform of spell- 
ing, the system of which is still exceedingly defective. 

At the close of the seventeenth, and the beginning of 
the eighteenth century, France was the great military na- 
tion of Europe, and as the French were accounted masters 
in the art of war, they were taken as models by other na- 
tions, England among the number. By this means a con- 
siderable number of words relating to military affairs has 
come from the French into the English. Addison, in the 
" Spectator," gives a very humorous account of the use of 
French words and military phrases during the war under 
Marlborough, and remarks " that the present war has so 
adulterated our tongue with strange words, that it would 
be impossible for one of our great-grandfathers to know 
what his posterity have been doing, were he to read their 
exploits in a modern newspaper." It must be remembered 
that, during the whole of the eighteenth century, French 
was the current language of Europe, and seemed destined 
to become ere long the language of the world. So com- 
mon was its use that Gibbon at first designed to write his 
great " Decline and Fall " in French, and was only dis- 
suaded by the advice of the sagacious David Hume, who 
foresaw that English was certain in time to take its place 
as the language of almost universal intercourse. Such, 
however, is the language of Gibbon, that, had he written 
in French, it would, as regards the selection of words, 
have made but little difference, as will be seen by the fol- 
lowing extract from his work. " It was once proposed to 
discriminate the slaves by a peculiar habit ; but it was justly 
apprehended that there might be some danger in acquainting 
them with their own numbers. Without interpreting, in 
their utmost strictness, the liberal appellations of legions and 
myriads, we may venture to pronounce that the proportion 
of slaves, who were valued as property, was more consider- 
able than that of servants, who can be computed only as an 
expense. The youths of a promising genius were instructed 
in the arts and sciences, and their price was ascertaified by 
the degree of their skill and talents. Almost every profes- 
sion, either liberal or mechanical, might be found in the 
household of an opulent senator. The ministers of pomp 
and sensuality were multiplied beyond the conception of 
modern luxury. It was more for the interest of the mer- 
chant or manufacturer to purchase, than to hire his work- 
men ; and in the country, slaves were employed as the cheap- 
est and most laborious instruments of agriculture. To confirm 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 369 

the general observation, and to display the multitude of slaves, 
we might allege a variety of particular instances. It was 
discovered on a z^ry melancholy occasion, that four hundred 
slaves were maintained in a single palace of Rome." 1 If 
from this fragment we take out the articles, pronouns, 
prepositions, conjunctions, and auxiliaries, that is, those 
words which are of constant recurrence but mean noth- 
ing by themselves, we shall find that the substance is al- 
most exclusively French. 

In respect to a limited introduction of foreign terms 
into native compositions, the earlier half of the eighteenth 
century was far more particular than the latter. Defoe, 
Addison, Swift, Pope, are names worthy of all honor ; and 
it were to be wished that no French or Latin terms had 
been brought in since their day, at least, not without good 
reason. Johnson has said, " Whoever wishes to attain an 
English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not 
ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes 
of Addison." He did, however, not always practice what 
he preached. His language seems to have been influenced 
rather by the study of Jeremy Taylor and Sir Thomas 
Browne ; for though he himself coined but few new words, 
most of those he uses will be found in the writings of these 
authors. Still, so great has been his influence on the Eng- 
lish language, partly through his Dictionary, that the 
words made use of by him have been stamped with a kind 
of authority. 

Since Johnson's time, writers of great eminence have 
arisen in all branches of literature, but so varied has been 
their language, that it is often difficult to decide whether 
it is the Saxon, French, or Latin which predominates in 
their compositions. The immense development of the 
physical sciences during the last half century has called 
for a corresponding extension of terminology which, in 
most instances, has been supplied from the Greek ; and 
although these terms are in the first instance essentially 
technical, yet with the spread of education and general 
diffusion of the rudiments and appliances of science, many 
of them have passed, and are constantly passing, in gen- 
eral circulation. Social, artistic, and literary contact with 
other nations, has likewise led to the adoption of numerous 
words from modern European languages, generally from 
the French, sometimes from Italian, and but seldom from 

1 Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 



370 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



the German. Commercial intercourse, extending all over 
the world, has also introduced many exotic words now in 
common use. But more interesting- and more important 
perhaps than all these are the dialectic words that from 
time to time have attained literary recognition — old say- 
ings, old words, often of Dutch, Danish, or Celtic origin, 
which have been preserved in some local dialects, and 
which have thus at last found their way back into the 
standard language. 

As to the actual proportion of the various elements 
which compose the English vocabulary, it is probable that 
the original English words do not now form more than a 
third, perhaps even a fourth only, of the total entries in a 
full English dictionary ; and it may seem strange, there- 
fore, that the language is still identified by philologers 
with that of the ninth century, and classified as a member 
of the Low German division. But this explains itself when 
we consider that of the total words of a dictionary only a 
small portion are used by any one individual in speaking 
or even in writing ; and when further we observe that all 
the pronouns and determinatives, all the numerals, cardi- 
nal and ordinal, second only excepted, all the primary 
particles, all the terminations necessary for the inflection 
of substantives, the comparison of adjectives and the con- 
jugation of verbs, as well as almost all words in common 
use, are of Saxon origin, it is quite evident that whatever 
be the number of foreign words admitted into English, it 
is yet the original native speech which furnishes the ground- 
work of the language. While the English used their own 
words, they could not forget their own way of using them, 
and when one by one French words were introduced intG- 
the sentence, they became English by the very act of ad< 
mission, and were at once subjected to all the duties and 
liabilities of English words in the same position. This is 
exactly what still takes place at the present day. Any 
French article of permanent use, imported under a French 
name, makes that name as thoroughly known, and as thor- 
oughly English, as if it had been in the language for ages. 
If new words, when adopted, conform themselves to the 
manner and usage of the adopting language, it makes ab- 
solutely no difference whether they are transferred from 
some other language or built up from existing roots. In 
either case they are new words to begin with ; in either 
case, also, if they are needed, they will become as thor- 
oughly native, that is, familiar from childhood to those 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



in 



who use them as those that possess the longest native pedi- 
gree. Whatever, therefore, may have been the direct and 
eventual results of the Norman conquest upon the recon- 
struction of the English vocabulary ; whatever the amount 
or proportion of foreign words that have since been 
adopted ; however even their presence may have affected 
the grammatical structure of the language, the language 
itself is English not the less; and if comparison could 
further illustrate this, the language, as at present, might 
be likened to a stately old tree whose huge gnarly roots 
sink deep into the native soil, and whose massive trunk, 
thickly covered with foreign grafts, bears fruits and flow- 
ers in abundance, often foreign in appearance, but with a 
strong taste and flavor of the native sap which nourishes 
them and on which they thrive. 

While thus tracing back the English language to its 
natural sources, we must refer to a curious fiction, which 
is apt to mislead the student as regards the name of Anglo- 
Saxon, which is sometimes used by poets and orators to 
designate Modern English. Applied to the language of 
Alfred or JEUric, it may serve to indicate the native dia- 
lect of the period, and by extension, up to and even during 
the time of its decomposition ; but to apply it to modern 
English can only lead to error, as regards the nature of 
the language during the earlier parts of its history. What 
little the student has seen of Anglo-Saxon in this volume 
will, no doubt, suffice to convince him that no amount of 
familiarity with modern English, including its local dia- 
lects, or even with the language of Chaucer and writers 
of his century, would enable one to read the old language of 
England, as current before the Norman conquest, not only 
on account of the great number of words that are lost, but 
also from the altered form of those that have remained ; 
nor would a knowledge of these words give him the 
power, since the grammatical system, in accidence as well 
as syntax, would be entirely strange to him. The use of 
the term to designate English is all the more incorrect as 
its very origin is uncertain and disputed, some maintain- 
ing that it means a union of Angles and Saxons ; others, 
probably with better foundation, that it meant " English 
Saxons," or Saxons of England, as distinguished from 
Saxons of the Continent. Although there is no evidence 
that either the Angles or the Saxons ever used the term 
in speaking of themselves, it has been lately much em- 
ployed, not only to designate collectively the Teutonic 



372 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

conquerors of Britain, but all the people who speak the 
English language in England, in America, and every- 
where else. In the mind of some this aggregation is even 
regarded as homogeneous, and styled by them the "An- 
glo-Saxon race." On the same ground we might call the 
Germans the Prussian race, the Americans the New Eng- 
land race, or the Celts the Tipperary race. The fact that 
the word " Saxon " was occasionally used by Latin writers 
of the time, in cases where we always find " English " in 
the native tongue, is mainly to be attributed to the tend- 
ency — one which has had more or less influence on almost 
all Latin writers then and since — to use expressions which 
sounded in some way grander or more archaic than those 
which were in common use. In the same way James 
Thompson said " Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the 
waves," etc. ; he would have called it " Albion " or any- 
thing else, if another word had suited his lines better. 
Thus a euphemism may be a misnomer, sounding well 
enough sometimes in poetry, but not allowed in prose. In 
reference to this, Sir Francis Palgrave remarks : " I must 
needs here pause, and substitute henceforward the true 
and antient word ' English ' for the unhistoricai and con- 
ventional term ' Anglo-Saxon,' an expression conveying 
a most false idea in our civil history." It is quite certain 
that, ever since Egbert, the word " Anglo-Saxon " was 
not used, any more than the word " Saxon," as the ordi- 
nary name of the nation. An inhabitant of one of the 
real Saxon settlements might indeed have called himself a 
Saxon, as opposed to his Anglian neighbors ; he might 
have been from Essex or Sussex, and be called according- 
ly an eastern or a southern Saxon ; or an inhabitant of 
Anglia itself might have been spoken of as belonging to 
either the north-folk or the south-folk, just as here we 
speak of Northerners and Southerners ; but even as here 
we are all Americans, and known as such as a nation, so 
Angles, Saxons, and whatever smaller tribes or fractions 
of tribes there may have been among them, were all called 
collectively Angles, Engles, Englesmen — belonging to the 
same kin, called by themselves " Angel-cyn " ; and though 
their dialects may have been ever so various, their com- 
mon language, as expressed in writing — in a word, their 
literary language — has come down to us, not as " Anglo- 
Saxon," nor Anglo-Danish, but as Alfred himself called it, 
" English." It is only for the purpose of philological dis- 
tinctness that the name of " Anglo-Saxon " has been and 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



373 



can be used with any propriety to designate the language 
from the arrival of the Saxons till the irruption of the 
Danes; that of " Anglo-Danish " to mark the decline of 
the language from the time of the Danish to the Norman 
invasion ; and that of " Anglo-Norman " to denote the 
French spoken by the Normans in England. In the same 
way the names of " Semi-Saxon," " Old English," and 
" Middle English " have been invented to subdivide the 
changes from the old native speech into Modern English. 
And in conformity with this custom we may, with all pro- 
priety, use these names in speaking of the successive 
stages of the language. For all other purposes, the term 
"Anglo-Saxon" is as inappropriate as that of "Anglo- 
Danish" or "Anglo-Norman" would be to designate 
" English." 

By a fiction similar to that which calls English " Anglo- 
Saxon," the French element of the language is sometimes 
called " Latin." For those who do not know French, or 
are unacquainted with the history of that language, it 
may afford some faint assistance in distinguishing between 
words of Teutonic and others of Romance origin, but it 
has certainly the inconvenience of hopelessly mixing up, 
i, the Old French words which, blending with the native 
dialects, form the basis of the English vocabulary; 2, the 
French words which, formed by French writers from 
Latin, were imported in the sixteenth century mainly 
through translations ; 3, the Latin words which, made to 
sound like English, were subsequently introduced directly 
by English scholars ; and 4, the modern French, and a 
few Spanish and Italian words, which ever since have 
found their way into the language up to the present day. 
Of these four classes of words, the latter belong more es- 
pecially to the sciences, arts, and trades introduced from 
abroad ; to foreign fancies and fashions ; or to peculiar 
shades of thought, first developed among foreign writers. 
All these words, however, keep up more or less their 
foreign sound and appearance, and like the many scien- 
tific and technical terms that have been fabricated from 
the Greek, they can hardly be considered as belonging to 
the general vocabulary of the language, but rather form 
an artificial appendage to it. Though many words of this 
class have passed into general circulation, most of them 
are understood by the initiated only. The words of Nor- 
man origin, on the contrary, are understood by all, and 
always used correctly. Springing direct from the living 



374 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

and spoken language, and being the fruit of spontaneous 
and natural growth, they are part and parcel of the peo- 
ple's language ; and so thoroughly are they blended and 
assimilated with it, that in most instances none but the 
special student is conscious of their foreign origin. Vastly 
different they are in this respect from the foreign words 
that were introduced subsequently through the writings of 
the learned, who took them from the books of other learned 
authors. All these words, absolutely necessary to repre- 
sent the more delicate shades of thought, and to express 
the complex relation of the higher mental conceptions, 
form, no doubt, a most important part of the present 
vocabulary ; but, although with the general diffusion of 
knowledge many have passed into the common tongue, 
their use is still mainly confined to the educated, and to 
the language of learned speakers and writers. 

There is thus a vast difference between the two cate- 
gories of words of foreign origin now found in the lan- 
guage — the one inherited, the other imported ; the former, 
mixed with what remained of the native dialects, forming 
the people's vocabulary, serving the purpose of business 
and familiar speech, and furnishing the terms of endear- 
ment, affection, and emotion; the latter composing the 
language of reasoning, of science, and philosophy, and the 
higher intellectual processes in general. To call all these 
words indiscriminately Latin would not assist the student 
in establishing etymological or rhetorical distinctions. It 
is true that French and Latin may be looked upon as two 
successive conditions of the same language, but still be- 
tween the two there is a marked difference; and not to 
notice it would be as great a blunder as, in another order 
of ideas, not to distinguish between mother and daughter. 
The Normans spoke French, not Latin ; and it was the 
French as spoken by them which, blending with the na- 
tive dialects, has formed that wonderful language which, 
by the power thus acquired of enriching its vocabulary 
from all available sources, has found its way into almost 
every country, and which, having allied itself with every 
art and science, and been used for every purpose of hu- 
man action and thought, has now become inferior to none, 
and superior to almost all, in those excellencies and utili- 
ties for which languages have been commended and pre- 
ferred. 

While thus inquiring into the sources of the English 
language by means of historical, archaeological, and eth- 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 375 

nological research, the student can not have failed to dis- 
cover that, although language is still the first test among 
those by which races are distinguished, its application as 
such is restricted by conditions very different from the 
dogma, once so hastily pronounced., that it is the one 
great decisive test. No country more signally than our 
own presents examples of the'fact, of which proofs abound 
throughout the world, that the language spoken by a peo- 
ple is, by itself, no test of race at all ; nor is the fallacy of 
the principle of " nationalities of race " more clearly dem- 
onstrated than by the history of the people from whom 
our own vernacular is borrowed, and whose patriotic and 
political nationality is founded on fusion rather than on 
purity of race ; indeed, the latter would perhaps be sought 
in vain throughout the world. 

Undoubtedly the history of the formation of a language 
is essentially the history of the people who speak and of 
those who have spoken it ; and if this language is our own, 
a knowledge of both these branches, studied conjointly, 
will prove all the more valuable as, in case of doubt, it 
allows an intelligent and methodical inquiry into the na- 
ture of every word that may suggest itself for use — from 
what parent stock it came ; what circumstances led to its 
introduction ; through what changes of form it has passed ; 
what was its original meaning, and its subsequent devia- 
tion from that first signification. Such a task, made ha- 
bitual, will be found not only most instructive, but also 
exceedingly interesting. For this purpose let the student 
carefully examine the materials at hand, and in his com- 
positions select such words and forms as will exactly ex- 
press his ideas. Let him suit his language to his subject, 
and employ none but the most usual terms to produce the 
effect desired. Above all, let him remember that, though 
English has borrowed a great deal of French, though it has 
lost a large stock of native English words, though it has 
adopted many a French idiom, and has been influenced by 
French in endless indirect ways, it still remains English. 
On the other hand, let him not imagine that English is still 
Saxon, and that in order to write English well we must 
banish from our phrases every word taken from the 
French and Latin. Such an attempt would show a gross 
ignorance of the sources of the language, and throw out 
the whole vocabulary of art, science, philosophy, and 
modern civilization. Nay, what is more, it would be im- 
possible even to allude to many of the most primitive ob- 



376 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

jects and occurrences in life; for although the original 
English vocabulary has furnished its ample share of words 
for the expression of the most familiar ideas, yet such 
words as pray, pay, money, rent, debt, prison, judge, rich, poor, 
people, parents, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, cousin, city, village, 
country, river, lake, rock, valley, mountain, air, fruit, flowers, 
plants, herbs, carrots, onions, dinner, supper, boil, fry, roast, 
pork, lard, beef, mutton, plate, place, chair, table, round, square, 
touch, try, turn, taste, suffer, marry, grief, pain, labor, wages, 
bottle, boot, coat, vest, jacket, pocket, face, voice, etc., etc., have 
won their way into the hovel as well as into the manor ; 
nor can they be adequately expressed by any other terms. 
While, therefore, the student should not aim at adorn- 
ing his style by an excessive use of foreign terms, he 
should be careful also not to fall into the opposite extreme, 
and impoverish his language by a too exclusive prefer- 
ence for words derived from the Saxon. He should, 
indeed, never discard such w r ords without good reason, 
and if among these he can not find any that will suit his 
purpose, he should prefer a French or Latin word natu- 
ralized before the eighteenth century to any later comer. 
On this subject we may profitably notice the remarks of 
Dr. Freeman, who, though far from underrating the Nor- 
man influence in the formation of the English language, 
or ignoring the importance of words derived from that 
source, nevertheless protests, as so many have done before 
him, against the immoderate use of French and Latin 
terms, to the neglect of those of Saxon origin. On re- 
printing his " Essays," written many years before, he says : 
" In almost every page I have found it easy to put 
some plain English word, about whose meaning there can 
be no doubt, instead of those needless French and Latin 
words which are thought to add dignity to style, but 
which in truth only add vagueness. I am in no way 
ashamed to find that I can write purer and clearer English 
now than I did fourteen and fifteen years back ; and I 
think it well to mention the fact for the encouragement of 
younger writers. The common temptation of beginners 
is to write in what they think a more elevated fashion. It 
needs some years of practice before a man fully takes in 
the truth that, for real strength, and, above all, for real 
clearness, there is nothing: like the old English speech of 
our fathers." 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 



377 



CHAPTER XL 

SCRAPS FROM ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS ILLUSTRATING EARLY 
ENGLISH LITERATURE AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

Preliminary Remarks. 

In order to understand correctly the specimens of 
early English presented in this chapter, it must be borne 
in mind that, with the exception of the Anglo-Saxon 
" Chronicle " — which kept up the ancient idiom of Alfred 
long after that language had ceased to be vernacular — all 
English works that since made their appearance were 
written for the use of people who no longer understood 
the elder forms of speech, but whose local dialects varied 
to such an extent as to be unintelligible, in many instances, 
to persons inhabiting different parts of the country. How- 
ever, leaving aside all minor differences, and noticing only 
the leading features of the literary records of the thirteenth 
and fourteenth centuries, we will find that the New Eng- 
lish of that time was represented by three principal dia- 
lects, which may be grouped as follows : 

i. The Northern dialects, spoken throughout the Low- 
lands of Scotland, Northumberland, Durham, and nearly 
the whole of Yorkshire. Roughly speaking, the Humber 
and Ouse formed the southern boundary of this area, 
while the Penine Chain determined its limits to the west. 

2. The Midland dialect, spoken in the counties to the 
west of the Penine Chain, in the East-Anglian counties, 
and in the whole of the Midland district. The Thames 
formed the southern boundary of this region. 

3. The Southern dialect, spoken in all the counties 
south of the Thames ; in Somersetshire, Gloucestershire, 
and portions of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. 

There is no doubt that the Midland dialect exercised 
an influence upon the Southern dialect wherever it hap- 
pened to be geographically connected with it, just as the 
Northumbrian acted upon the adjacent Midland dialects ; 
and this enables us to understand that admixture of gram- 



378 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

matical forms which is to be found in some of the early 
English manuscripts. 

No previous knowledge of oldest English, that is, An- 
glo-Saxon, is required for the perusal of the extracts con- 
tained in this chapter. The translation of a few pieces 
will render the student familiar with the earlier forms of 
English, after which the addition of copious notes will as- 
sist him in solving the principal difficulties of construc- 
tion, and explain or illustrate most of the rarer words and 
forms. 

A great deal of the supposed difficulty of Early Eng- 
lish, and much of the curious awe with which many per- 
sons regard it, as if it were a study much beyond them, 
and in which they can have little interest, has been the 
indirect result of the injudicious way in which editors 
have been accustomed to tamper with their texts. Read- 
ers are so used to having their extracts from older au- 
thors modified or modernized, that they find themselves 
thrown out when actually meeting with a genuine old 
book, and are discouraged at the outset from attempting 
to peruse it. 1 In the present volume many pieces have 
been printed without alteration, and with the exact spell- 
ing which occurs in the original manuscript, or old black- 
letter books from which they are taken. The student who 
masters their contents will therefore make a real advance, 
and be pleased to find himself able to read with consider- 
able ease almost every Old English printed book in exist- 
ence. He will also find that he has acquired much that 
will assist him in reading early manuscripts. 

There are only a few difficulties that are likely to 
trouble him at first. These arise from three principal 
sources, viz., from the alphabet employed, from the spell- 
ing, and from the diction or vocabulary of words used. 
The alphabet and the spelling should receive previous 
attention ; but a knowledge of the vocabulary will come 
with time, being acquired imperceptibly, yet with ever- 
increasing rapidity. A few hints on these subjects will 
probably be of service. 

The Alphabet. — The letters are the same as those we 
use now, with two additions, and with some variations in 
significance. The additional letters are J> and 3. Both of 

1 But for the unfortunate readiness with which editors and publishers have 
yielded to the popular demand for conformity to the spelling and the vocabu- 
lary of the day, the knowledge of genuine English would now be both more 
general and further advanced than it is. — Marsh, Lectures on English. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. $79 

these are of frequent occurrence in early manuscripts. 
The former (j>) signifies th. In our modern pronunciation 
we make a distinction between the initial sounds of thine 
and thin, a distinction which probably did not exist in the 
earliest times, the th always being "voiced," as in thine; 
and it is remarkable that we still preserve this sound in 
the oldest and commonest words, such as thou, the, that, 
there, then, and the like. Often, however, we find a dis- 
tinction made in manuscripts of the fourteenth century, 
some scribes using \ at the beginning of \e, ]>at, and the 
letters th at the beginning of thin, thikke. In the fifteenth 
century this distinction was less regarded, and the sym- 
bol ]> gradually fell into disuse. Very soon after this the 
scribes began to form the character ]> so indistinctly that 
no difference was made between it and the letter y. Often, 
also, the manuscript has "yS" where the y means th, and 
the a is only indicated by the t being a little above the line. 
Hence it is very common to find in old printed books the 
words "y e ," "yV "yis," which are to be read the, that, 
this, and not ye, yat, yis, as many persons seem to suppose. 

The character 3 had various powers. At the beginning 
of a word it was sounded as y, so that ^ard is our mod- 
ern yard; in the middle of a word it had a guttural sound, 
still represented in our spelling by gh, as li$ for light ; at 
the end of a word it either had the same sound, or stood 
for z. In fact the character for z was written precisely 
like it, although more sparingly employed ; thus we find 
marchauntt, for marchauntz, where the z, by the way, must 
necessarily have been sounded as s. This use of the char- 
acter is French, and appears chiefly in French words. 
In early French manuscripts it is very common, and de- 
notes z only. 

The characters v and u require particular attention. 
The latter is freely used to denote both the modern sounds, 
and the reader must be prepared at any moment to treat 
it as a consonant. Thus the words haue, lene, diuerse are 
to be read have, leve, diverse ; where it will be observed 
that the symbol appears between two vowels. The v 
is used sparingly, but sometimes denotes the modern u, 
chiefly at the beginning of a word. The following are 
nearly all the commoner examples of it: vce or vse (use), 
vtter (utter), vp (up), vpon (upon); and the prefix vn- (un-). 

Occasionally even w is used for u. Hence the words 
swe, remwe, are for sue, remue ; and, in one instance, we 
find the curious form dywlgat=dyuidgat=dyvuigat=di- 



380 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

vulged. In some examples of Lowland Scotch w is used 
for both u and v ; so that gawe means gave, and hows is 
hous (house). A little practice soon renders the eye fa- 
miliar with these variations. 

The letter/ is very rare. It is generally denoted by 
a capital // as in Iape, Ieoperdie, Iourney, for jape, jeopardy, 
journey. Sometimes if is written for y, as in wij)t=wy$t= 
wyght=wight. This symbol is very common in modern 
Dutch, as in the words mijn (mine), and wijn (wine), which 
are pronounced mine and wine, respectively. The combi- 
nation quh is common in Scotch, and answers to the mod- 
ern English wh and the Anglo-Saxon hw; as in quhy for 
why. 

The reader should also observe that proper names 
more frequently begin with a small letter than with a capi- 
tal ; as, pry ant for Priam. The letters a, i, and r, are fre- 
quently written as capitals at the beginning of words in 
ancient manuscripts. Marks of punctuation are very rare 
in these manuscripts ; and in old printed books we fre- 
quently find only the mark / for a comma, with occasional 
full stops and colons. 

Spelling. — It is a common error to look upon the spell- 
ing of Old English as utterly lawless, and unworthy of 
notice. Because it is not uniform, the conclusion is at 
once rushed to that it can not be of much service. No 
mistake could well be worse. It is frequently far better 
than our modern spelling, and helps to show hoAV badly 
we spell now, in spite of the attempt at uniformity intro- 
duced by printers for the sake of convenience. Old Eng- 
lish spelling was conducted on an intelligible principle, 
whereas our modern spelling exhibits no principle at all, 
but merely illustrates the inconvenience of separating 
symbols from sounds. The intelligible principle of Old 
English spelling is, that it was intended to be phonetic. 
Bound by no particular laws, each scribe did the best he 
could to represent the sounds which he heard, and the 
notion of putting in letters that were not sounded was 
(except in the case of final e) almost unknown. The very 
variations are of value, because they help to render more 
clear in each case what the sound was which the scribes 
were attempting to represent. But to bear in mind that 
the spelling was phonetic is to hold the clue to it. Scribes 
differed in their modes of spelling for several reasons. 
Most of them were guided by the pronunciation of the 
dialect of their place of residence, and dialects were then 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 38 r 

numerous. Some were more ignorant than others, whence 
the exceptional badness of the spelling. Many were in- 
fluenced by what they themselves had previously read, 
so that changes of spelling took place more slowly than 
changes in pronunciation, and were often a little behind 
it. The most marked instance of this is in <the case of 
e final, which was retained in spelling after it had ceased 
to be pronounced, so that the spelling of serche, for in- 
stance, indicates that the word was formerly pronounced 
serene, a dissylable. Unfortunately, one result of this was 
that a silent e was often ignorantly added, as in the word 
kynge, which is often rightly spelt kyng on the same page. 
It is impossible to enlarge upon this here, for want of 
space ; but experience shows that the spelling very sel- 
dom causes any real difficulty, and that the words which 
are so disguised by it as not to be intelligible at first sight 
are very few indeed. Those who do not care to investi- 
gate the spelling, have only to read right on and aloud, 
when the difficulty will gradually disappear. Owing to 
the great changes, however, that have taken place in the 
pronunciation of Modern English, it may not always be 
easy for the reader to form any clear ideas how Early Eng- 
lish sounded when spoken, unless he will take some pains 
to examine the matter for himself, first putting aside all 
preconceived notions evolved out of his inevitable igno- 
rance. There is reason to believe that very considerable 
changes have taken place in English pronunciation since 
the fourteenth century, and that the vowels were at that 
time pronounced much more like those heard in conti- 
nental languages than is the case at present. Hence the 
best general rule that can be given for approximating to 
the sounds of Early English vowels, is to give to a, e, i, 0, u 
their present continental values ; that is, to pronounce them 
as in Dutch or Italian, carefully avoiding being misled 
by the peculiar sounds which occur in familiar modern 
English. 

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 

" It is deeply to be regretted," says Thorpe, " that an historic monument 
so important as this " Chronicle" should afford us no information with regard to 
its several writers, or to the mode in which it gradually grew into the form in 
which we now possess it." Equally devoid are we of all indirect or collateral 
evidence tending to cast a glimmering of light on these points. Conjecture, 
therefore, and that only founded on probability, is all we can have recourse to, 
in an attempt to account for the phenomenon. One point, however, seems in- 
disputable, viz., that the several manuscripts, whether West Saxon or Mercian, 
are derived from a common original ; whence the question naturally arises, how 



382 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



and by whom was such original issued to the several monasteries, which, from 
their rank, or the reputation of one or other of their inmates, for learning or 
superior penmanship, were deemed qualified for the proposed task of multi- 
plying copies ; and where it received such additional matter as, on account of 
local interest or other circumstances, might seem desirable to those whose 
province it was to supervise the literary department of the brotherhood. 

As contributors to the composition of the " Saxon Chronicle," the names of 
King Alfred, and of Archbishops Phlegemund and Dunstan have been men- 
tioned. This, too, is pure conjecture ; though with respect, at least, to Alfred 
and Phlegemund, a conjecture by no means void of probability ; nor shall we 
greatly err, perhaps, in assigning to their influence and authority the earlier or 
original portion of the earliest manuscript, ending with the year 891, and 
which, from a comparison of the form of its letters with those of other manu- 
scripts of the same period, may be safely assigned to the end of the ninth cent- 
ury, and with a semblance of probability, as the prototype of the other copies. 
In favor, too, of Alfred's participation in the composition of the " Chronicle," 
may be noticed the greater fullness of narrative that prevails, from the year 853, 
or soon after Alfred's birth ; also, that the account of acts of that prince is, in 
all the manuscripts, so strikingly similar ; while, in other cases, they frequently 
exhibit great deviations from each other. 

The testimony also supplied us by the old French chronicle of Geoffroi 
Gaimar, who lived in the middle of the twelfth century, is of some authority, 
as tending to corroborate the supposition that to King Alfred we are indebted 
for a " Saxon Chronicle," and, down to his time, probably in its present form. 
According to the same chronicler, that prince had a copy of a " Chronicle " at 
Winchester fastened by a chain, so that all who wished might read, but that it 
might not be taken from the spot ; * a custom of which traces still exist in Eng- 
land, or at least have existed, within the memory of the present generation. A 
further corroboration of the existence of the "Chronicle" in its present form, in 
the days of King Alfred, is the circumstance that his friend Asser, bishop of 
Sherborne, translates and incorporates much of its matter in his Latin life of 
his royal patron from the years 849 to 887. 

The " Saxon Chronicle " comprises the period from the invasion of Britain 
by Julius Csesar to the accession of Henry II, in A. D. 1154 ; and is, conjointly 
with the " Ecclesiastical History" of Bede, the principal source whence our early 
chroniclers have derived their matter. While regarding Alfred as the probable 
originator of the " Saxon Chronicle," it must, at the same time, be evident that 
in England there already existed written memorials of earlier times, whence he, 
or rather perhaps his coadjutors, derived materials ; and to such Bede alludes 
in the words: "A principio voluminis hujus usque ad tempus quo gens Anglo- 
rum fidem Christi percipit, ex priorum maxime scriptis, hinc inde collectis, ea 
quae promeremus didicimus." He also speaks of " monimenta literarum " ; also 
Malmesbury : " Sunt sane quaedam vetustatis indicia, chronico more et patrio 
sermone, per annos Domini ordinati." 

Thus, from the beginning of the " Chronicle " to the death of Bede (A. D. 
734), we are able, in some measure, to form a judgment as to the sources whence 
much of its matter is derived ; but from that date until the time of Alfred (or 
about a hundred and fifty years), we know not from what materials the narra- 
tive was compiled. Tradition, which in those days must have been in much 
greater request than it is now, no doubt contributed its share ; some marginal 
notes, also, on the volumes of monastic libraries, may have afforded informa*- 
tion, as it appears was the case on the Continent. 

1 Li reis Elfred Tout en demaine ; 
fermer i fist une chaine. 
ki lire i volt bien i guardast ; 
mais de son liu nel' remnast. 

Geoffroi Gaimar, ii, 2316, seqq. 



;; 



RCRl£Tf S G 





AN-u» 



AH^ 



.f^^'-jCC-pocui^tr^' 




ittfcm^ft^ft-- 



r/^rn, 



F^e-^irDile of tJ7e fii^b p&Je of ^ID.tf.copy of tJ7efln^lo- 
-STaocnnrbpnnu'le i»w>«>i»w.d in Kb? Rj»iticb [Dureum. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 383 

Such a continuous chain of occurrences as that exhibited in the " Anglo- 
Saxon Chronicle " would, it is reasonable to suppose, display a gradation of 
changes in the Anglo-Saxon tongue during the two centuries from the time of 
Alfred to the death of Harold ; such is not, however, the case, as the language 
is the same throughout, with regard both to its vocabulary and its inflexions ; 
nor until some time after the conquest do we observe any material corruptions ; 
they then begin to be but too manifest. Yet even here we have hardly a just 
criterion in the Peterborough, or Laudian manuscript, much of the later parts 
of which are evidently the work of illiterate, or even foreign, monks, glaringly 
ignorant of the use of genders and cases. From this period may be dated the 
break-up of the old " English undefiled." The following is a transcript of the 
accompanying fac simile plate of the Cottonian Manuscript, Tiberius, A. VI, in 
the British Museum. 

Mr Cristes geflsescnesse lx. wintra . Gaius Iulius se casere 
serest Romana Brytenland gesohte . y Bryttas mid gefeohte cny- 
sede . 3 hie oferswipde . 3 swa t5eah ne mihte Saer rice gewin- 
nan. 

An. 1. Octauianus rixode lxvi. wintra . 3 on pam xlii. gere 
his rices Crist waes acenned. 

An. 11. Da fry tungolwitigan of east dsele coman . to 'Sam f 
hie Crist weorpodan . 3 )>a cild on Bethleem ofslegene wseran . for 
Cristes ehtnesse . fram Herode. 

An. in. Her swealt Herodes fram him sylfum ofsticod . 3 Ar- 
chelaus his sunu feng to rice. 

An. mi, v. 

An. vi. Fram frympe middangeardes oJ> pis gear wseron agan 
v. wintra. "j cc. wintra. 

An. vii-xi. 

An. xii. Philippus 3 Herodes todseldan Lysiam 3 Iudeam fe- 
perricum. 

An. xin-xv. 

An. xvi. Her feng Tiberius to rice. 

An. xvn-xxv. 

An. xxvi. Her onfeng Pilatus gyminge ofer Iudeas. 

An. xxvii-xxix. 

An. xxx. Her waes Crist gefulwad . 3 Petrus ~\ Andreas geh- 
wyrfde . 3 Iacobus 3 Iohannes -] Philippus 3 pa xii. apostolas. 

An. xxxi, xxxii. 

An. xxxiii. Her waes Crist ahangen . fram frympe middan- 
geardes ymb v. 3 cc. 3 xxvi. wintra. 

translation. 

Before the incarnation of Christ lx winters, Caius Julius the 
emperor, first of the Romans, sought the land of Britain ; and 
crushed the Britons in fight, and overcame them ; and yet might 
not there gain power. 

A. d. 1. Octavianus reigned lxvi winters ; and in the xlii year 
of his reign Christ was born. 

a d. n. The three astrologers from the East came to worship 



384 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

Christ ; and the children in Bethlehem were slain by Herod in 
persecution of Christ. 

A. d. in. This year died Herod, stabbed by his own hand ; 
and Archelaus his son succeeded him. 

a. d. mi, v. 

a. d. vi. From the beginning of the world to this year were 
agone v and cc winters (5,200). 

A. D. VII-XI. 

a. d. xii. This year Philip and Herod divided Judea into four 
kingdoms. 

a. d. xiii-xv. 

a. d. xvi. Here Tiberius succeeded to the empire. 

a. d. xvn-xxv. 

a. d. xxvi. Here Pilate began to reign over the Jews. 

A. D. XXVII-XXIX. 

A. d. xxx. Here was Christ baptized, and Peter and Andrew 
were converted, together with James and John and Philip, and 
all the xii apostles. 

A. D. XXXI, XXXII. 

a. d. xxxiii. Here was Christ crucified about v and cc and 
xxvi winters (5,226) from the beginning of the world. 

The following is a copy of the last entry made in the 
Peterborough or Laudian Manuscript of the " Chronicle," 
also in the British Museum. It continues its entries to a 
much later date than the former, but is not so well pre- 
served : 

Millesimo. c.liiii. On pis gaer waerd ]>e king Steph. ded • 3 
bebyried J>er his wif 3 his sune wseron bebyried set Fauresfeld • 
paet minstre hi makeden. pa ]>e king was ded • $a was pe eorl 
beionde sae • 3 ne durste nan man don o]?er bute god • for ]>e 
micel eie of him pa he to Engleland com • }>a was he under- 
fangen mid micel wurtscipe • 3 to king bletcsed in Lundene • on 

J>e Sunnendaei beforen midwinter daei -3 . .- micel 

curt, pat ilce daei J>at Mart, abbot of Burch sculde pider faren • 
pa saeclede he • 3 ward ded 1111 Noil Ian. 3 te munekes innen 
daeis cusen o]>er of heom saelf • Willelm de Walteuile is gehaten • 
god clerc 3 god man • 3 wael luued of \t k. 3 of alle gode men • 

and o en byrie pabbot hehlice • 3 sone ]>e cosan abbot 

ferde • 3 te muneces Oxenford to )>e king 

iaf him ]?at abbotrice • "3 he ferde "3 waes ]> . . . . abbot 

aer he ham come • 3 J?e . . . underfangen mid micel wurtscipe 

. . at Burch mid procession • "3 sua he was alsua at 

Rameseie • 3 at Torn 3 at Spall • 3 at . . . . beres • 3 

abbot 3 haued begunnon. Xrist h 1 

1 In this copy the dots indicate the decayed and illegible parts of the MS. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 385 

TRANSLATION. 

A. d. MCLIV. In this year King Stephen died, and was buried 
where his wife and son were buried at Faversham, the monastery 
which they had founded. When the king was dead, the count 
(Henry of Angou) was beyond the sea, but no man dared do other 
than good for the great awe of him. When he came to England, 
he was received with great worship, and consecrated as king in 
London on the Sunday before Midwinter Day, and there he held 
a great court. 

The same day that Martin, Abbot of Peterborough, should 
have gone thither, he fell sick and died on the 4th of the Nones 
of January (Jan. 2d) ; and the monks, within a day, chose for 
themselves another, called William de Wattevile, a good scholar 
and good man, and well beloved by the king and by all good men, 
and they buried the abbot sumptuously in the church. And soon 
the abbot-elect, and all the monks with him, went to Oxford to 
the king, and he gave him the abbey; and he went soon to Lin- 
coln, and there he was consecrated abbot ere he came home. 
Since then he was received at Peterborough with great worship 
and in great procession ; and so he was at Ramsey, at Thorney, 
at ... , and at Spallding, and at S. 1 ... . ; and he is now ab- 
bot, and has fairly begun. Christ grant him a good ending. 



The Lord's Prayer. 

anglo-saxon from eadfrith, about the year 700. 

Fader uren ]m ar)> in heofnum, 

Sie gehalgud noma J>in. 

To cymep ric pin ; 

Sie wills fin sucels in heofne & in eortho, 

Hlaf usenne ofer wistlic sel us to daeg; 

& forgef us scylda usna suce uce forgefon scyldgum usum ; 

& ne inlsed usik in costunge 

Uh gefrig usich from yfle. 

Durham Book, MS. Cotton, Brit. Mus. 

ANGLO-SAXON FROM ALFRED, A. D. 875. 

Faeder ure, ]m )>e eart on heofenum 

Si fin nama gehalgod 

To becume thin rice. 

Geweorfe ]>m willa on eorpan, swa swa on heofenum 

Urne daeghwamlican hlaf syle us to daeg 

And forgyf us ure gyltas, swa swa we forgifaj? urum gyltendum. 

And ne gelaede Ju us on costnunge, ac alys us of yfle 

Soplice. 



386 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

DANISH-SAXON, A. D. 900. 

Uren Fader pie arp in heofnas, 

Sie gehalgud pin noma ; 

To cymeth pin rye ; 

Sie thin willa sue is in heofnas, and in eortho; 

Uren hlaf ofer wittlic sel us to dag ; 

And forgef us scylda urna, sue we forgefan scyldgum urum ; 

And no inlad usih in custnung; 

Ah gefrig usih from yfle. Camden remains, S. 30. 

OLD ENGLISH TOWARD THE YEAR Il6o. 

Ure Faeder pu pe on heofene eart, 

Syo pin name gehaleged. 

To cume pin rice ; 

Geworde pin wille on heofene and on eorpe. 

Syle us to daig urne daighwamliche hlaf, 

And forgyf us ure geltes, swa we forgyfap aelcen fare pe with 

us agyttep. 
And ne laed thu us on costnunge, 
Ac alys fram yfele. Wanley, S. 76, and Chamberlayne, S. 59. 



Old English Homily. 

The following homily is one of a series of discourses for the Christian year, 
preached before A. D. 1200. The dialect is that of the South of England, in 
which many Dutch elements now make their first appearance in the written 
language, a sure sign that they had long been current in the spoken language. 
The name of the author is not known : 

HIC DICENDUM EST DE PROPHETA. 

\M~\issus est ieremias in puteum et stetit ibi usque ad os. Qui 
cum aliquandiu ibi stetisset- debilitatum est corpus eius. 6° tandem 
dimissis funibus subtr actus est. Et cum eorum duriciam. quia debilis 
erat sustinere non posset, allati sunt panni de domo regia et circum- 
positi sunt funibus ne \e\orum duricia lederetur. Leofemen we 
uindeS in halie boc. \et ieremie pe -prophete stod in ane putte. 
and \et in )>e uenne up to his muSe and ]>sl he hefede per ane hwile 
istonde. pa bi-co#z his licome swiSe feble. and me nom rapes and 
caste in to hi#z for to dra3en hine ut of pisse putte. Ah his licome 
wes se swiSe feble • \et he ne mihte noht ipolie pe herdnesse of pe 
rapes, pa sende me elates ut of pes kinges huse for to bi-winden 
pe rapes. \et his licome pe feble wes ne sceolde noht wursien. 
Leofemen peos ilke weord pe ic habbe her iseid habbeft muchele 
bi-tacnu«ge and god ha beo$ to heren and muchele betere to 
et-halden. Is hit god for to hiheren godes weordes and heom 
athalden - $e f uliwis. for ure lauerd godalmihtin seiS in pan halie 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 387 

godspelle. Beati qui audiunt uerbum 6r> custodiunt Mud. ^Edie 
and blessede beon alle peo pe ihereS godes weordes and heom 
athaldeS. Nu 3e habbeS iherd wulc hit is for to iheren godes 
weordes and heom ethalden. Nu we sculen eow sceawen hwilc 
hit is heo#z for to heren and nawiht for to ethalden. for seint 
gregori seiS. Melius est uiam ueritatis non agnoscere - r quam post 
agnitam retroire. Betre hit is \et mon ne iknawe noht pe wei to 
godalmihtin pe he hine icnawe and seodSe hine for-ho3ie ; and on 
oSer stude he sei(5. Qui obturat aures suas ne audiat legem dei> 
oratio eius erit execrabilis. pe mon pe tuneS his eren in halie chirche 
to^eines godes la$e and mile noht iheren pe weordes pe of him 
beo$. his beoden beoS aweriede and unwurSe gode. Puteus est 
peccati profunditas. quia quam diu stas in luto • tarn diu iaces in 
mortali peccato. pes put bitacneft deopnesse of sunne. for alse 
longe alse we liggeft in heiied sunnen' al pa hwile we sto[n]defr 
in the putte. and \et in pe uenne up to pe mUSe alse peos men doS 
pe liggeS inne eubruche and ine glutenerie and ine manatSas. and 
ine prude, and ine oSer fule sunnen. and \et beoS riche men al- 
remest pe habbeS pes muchele prude in pis worlde. )>e habbeS feire 
huses. and feire hames. feire wifes. and feire children, feire hors 
and feire clapes. heauekes and hundes. castles and tunes, her- 
uppon heo pencheS muchele mare pen uppo/z godalmihtin pe al 
pis heom haueS isend pa pe ligge$ i#ne swilc sunne. and ne pencheS 
noht for to arisen ' heo delueft deihwamliche heore put deoppre 
and deoppre. vnde propheta. Non claudit super te puteus os suum 
nisi clauseris os tuum. pe prophete sei<5. ]>et pe put ne tunet> noht 
lihtliche his muS ouer us bute we tunen ure muS. ah 3if we tuneS 
ure muft • pe^ne do we alse pe mon pe delueft ene put feower da^es 
o$er flue and penne he haueft hine alra le^gest idoluen i penne 
ualleS he per-inne. \et him brekeft pe sweore. \et. is \et he ualleS 
in to helle pine per neuer eft ne cumeS of bote. Ah leofemen 
godalmihtin haueS isceawed us wel muchele grace, penne he 
haueS geuen us to beon muft freo. \et we ma^en mid ure mufte 
bringen us ut of pisse putte • pe bitacneS peo deopnesse of sunne. 
and \et purh preo herde weies pe pus beoft ihaten. Cordis contri- 
cione. Oris confessione. Operis satisfactione. pur$ heorte bireu- 
sunge. purh muSes openunge. purh dede wel endinge. Cordis 
contritione moritur peccatum. oris confessione defer tur ad tumulum. 
operis satisfactione tumulatur in perpetuum. pe[nne] we beo$ sari in 
ure heorte \et we isuneged habbe5 penne slage we ure sunne ' 
pene we to sunbote cumeS. penne de we bi ure sunne al swa me 
deaS bi pe deade. for efterpan \et pe mon bi$ dead me leitS pene 
licome in pere pruh. Al swa pu leist pine sunne in pare pruh i 
hwenne pu scrift underuongest of pe sunnen pe pu idon hauest to- 
geines godes wille. penne pu hauest pine sunnen ibet I efter pines 
scriftes wissunge. penne buriest pu pine sunnen and bringest heom 
ut of pine on-walde. Per ieremiam notatur quilibet peccator qui in 
suo peccato moram facit. Bi ieremie pe prophetQ we a3en to un- 



388 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

dersto#den ulcne mon sunfulle. pet litS \n heuie sunne and purh 
soSe scr/ft his sunbendes nule slakien. funiculi amaritudines peni- 
tencie significant, pe rapes pe weren icast to him > bitacneS pe 
herdnesse of scrifte. for nis nan of us se strong pe hefde idon pre 
hef [ed] sunnen pet his licome nere swiSe feble er he hefde idre^en 
J»et scriit pe per to bilimpeS. panni circumpositi funibus • ecclesie 
sact -amenta significant quibus penitencie duricia mitigatur. pas kinges 
hus bitacneft hali chirch[e. pa] elates pet weren isende ut of p[es 
kinges huse] for to binden pe rapes mid • bitacnet pe halie ureisuns 
pe me singeft in halie chirche. and pe halie saenzme^s pe me sacretS 
in alesnesse of alia sunfulle. Leofemen nu $e habbeS iherd of 
pis putte pe bitacni^ge pe ic habbe embe ispeken. and pe bitacninge 
of pe prophefe. and pet pe rapes bitacneS. and hwat pa claSes bi- 
tacnet pe pe rapes weren mide biwu«den. IhereS nu$e whulche 
pinges wunietS in pisse putte. per wunieS fower cunnes wurmes 
inne. pet fordoS nuSe al peos midelerd. per wunieS in-ne fa$e 
neddren. and beoreS atter u/zder heore tunge. Blake tadden and 
habbeft atter uppon heore heorte. $eluwe froggen. and crabben. 
Crabbe is an manere of fissce in pere sea. pis fis is of swulc cunde. 
\et. euer se he mare streng$e$ him to sw[i]mminde mid pe watere ' 
se he mare swi^mieS abac, and pe aide crabbe seide to pe ^u«ge. 
hwi ne swi/«mest pu forward in pere sea alse o$er fisses do$. and 
heo seide. Leofe moder swim pu foren me and tech me hu ic 
seal swi/wmen forward and [heo] bi-gon to swizrcmen forward 
mid pe streme. and swam hire per-a$en. pas fa$e neddre bitacneS 
pis fa$e folc pe wuneS \n pisse weorlde. pe speket alse feire bi- 
foren heore eue^cr/stene alse heo heom walde in to heore bosme 
puten. and swa sone se hi beo<5 iturnd awey from heom ' heom 
to-twicchetS and to-dra$et5 mid ufele weordes. Hii eciam sunt doc- 
tores & falsichristiani. pos men pe pus to-dra^eS heore euencn's- 
tene bi-hinden heo habbeft pe nome of cr/stene ah pah heo be05 
cr/stes unwines and beo$ monsla^en for heo sla^eS heore a^ene 
saule. and bringeS heom in to pare eche pine of helle. pos blaca 
tadden pet habbeft pet atter uppon heore heorte. bi-tacneft pes riche 
men pe habbeS pes mucheles weorldes elite and na ma^en noht 
itimien par-of to eten ne to drinken ne na god don per-of for pe 
luue of godalmihtin pe haueS hit heom al geuen. ah liggeS per- 
uppon alse pe tadde de$ in pere eorSe pet neure ne mei itimien to 
eten hire fulle' swa heo is afered leste peo eorSe hire trukie. 
peos ilke ehte pe peos pus ouerligge$ heom turned to swart atter 
for heo failed per-purh in to per stronge pine pet na mon ne mei 
tellen. peos 3eolewe clapes. [bitacneS po pet feireS heom seoluen.] 
for pe $eolewe claft is pes deofles helster. peos wiwmen pe pus 
liuieS beot5 pes deofles musestoch iclepede. for penne pe mon wule 
tilden his musestoch he bindeS uppon pa swike chese and bret 
hine for pon pet he scolde swote smelle. and purh pe sweote smel 
of pe chese ' he bicherreS monie mus to pe stoke. Alswa do$ 
monie of pas wi^men heo smurieS heom mid blanchet pet is pes 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 389 

deofles sape and clapeS heom mid }eoluwe clape \et is pes deofles 
helster and seodftan heo lokieS in J?e scawere. ]>et is pes deofles 
hindene. pus heo do8 for to feiren heom seoluen. audio dra^en 
lechurs to ham. ah heo fule'S heom soluen per-mide. Nu leofe- 
men for godes lufe wite$ eow wiS pes deofles musestoch and witeS 
eow pet 3e ne beo noht pe foa^e neddre. ne pe blake tadde. ne pe 
$olewe frogge. pe feder. and pe sune. and pe halie gast. iscilde us 
per-wi$. and wio" alle sunnen a buten e^de. per omnia secula secu- 
lorum. Amen. 

TRANSLATION. 

\M~\issus est ieremias in puteum et stetit ibi usque ad as. Qui 
cum aliquandiu ibi stetisset- c debilitatum est corpus eius. 6° tandem 
dimissis funibus subtractus est. Et cum eorum duriciam. quia debilis 
erat sustinere non posset, allati sunt panni de domo regia et circum- 
positi sunt funibus ne \e\orum duricia lederetur} Beloved Brethren : 
We find in holy writ that Jeremiah the prophet stood in a pit with 
mud up to his mouth, and that, having stood there awhile, his 
body became very feeble ; and men took ropes and cast them to 
him to draw him out of this pit. But his body was so feeble, that 
in order he might not suffer from the hardness of the ropes, they 
sent cloths from the king's house to wind around the ropes so 
that his body, which had grown weak, should receive no further 
injury. Dear brethren, the words I have here said have an im- 
portant meaning, and good they are to hear, and much better to 
remember. That it is good to hear the words of God and to re- 
member them, ye know full well, for our Lord God almighty says 
in the holy gospel. Beati qui audiunt uerbum 6° custodiunt illud. 
Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep 

I 6 Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah 
the son of Hammelech, that was in the court of the prison : and they let down 
Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire : so 
Jeremiah sunk in the mire. 

7 Tf Now when Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, one of the eunuchs which was 
in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon ; the king 
then sitting in the gate of Benjamin ; 

8 Ebed-melech went forth out of the king's house, and spake to the king, 
saying, 

9 My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to 
Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon ; and he is like to 
die for hunger in the place where he is : for there is no more bread in the city. 

10 Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, Take 
from hence thirty men with thee, and take up Jeremiah the prophet out of the 
dungeon, before he die. 

II So Ebed-melech took the men with him, and went into the house of the 
king under the treasury, and took thence old cast clouts and old rotten rags, and 
let them down by cords into the dungeon to Jeremiah. 

12 And Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said unto Jeremiah. Put now these 
old cast clouts and rotten rags under thine armholes under the cords. And 
Jeremiah did so. 

13 So they drew up Jeremiah with cords, and took him up out of the dun- 
geon : and Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison. — Jeremiah, xxxviii. 

• 



390. 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



it (Luke xi, 28). Now you have heard what it is to hear God's 
words, and to observe them. Now we will show you what it is to 
hear them and not to observe them, for Saint Gregory hath said, 
Melius est uiam ueritatis non agnoscere- quam post agnitam retroire} 
Better it is for man not to know the way of God Almighty than to 
know it, and then to disregard it ; and elsewhere he says, Qui 
obturat aures suas ne audiat legem dei- oratio eius erit execrabilis. 
The man who shuts his ears in holy church against God's laws, 
and will not hear his words, his prayers are accursed and dis- 
pleasing to God. Puteus est peccati profunditas. quia quam diu 
stas in luto- tarn diu iaces in mortali peccato. This pit signifies 
" depth of sin,'* for as long as we lie in cardinal sins, we stand all 
the while in the pit with mud up to our mouth, like those men do 
that live in adultery, gluttony, perjury, pride, and other foul sins. 
And they are the rich men, most of all, that have so much pride 
in this world ; those that have fair houses and fair homes, fair 
wives and fair children, fair horses and fair clothes, hawks and 
hounds, castles and large estates, of which they think a great deal 
more than of God Almighty who has sent them all this, while they 
lie in such like sins, and think not how therefrom to arise. They 
daily dig their pit deeper and deeper, vnde propheta. Non claudit 
super te puteus os suum nisi clauseris os tuum? The prophet says 
that the pit does not shut its mouth on us unless we shut ours ; 
and if we shut our mouth then do we like those men who keep 
digging at one pit for four or five days, and having dug at it as 
long as they can, fall into it and break their neck, that is, they 
fall into the pains of hell, out of which there is no deliverance. 
But, dear brethren, God Almighty has shown us indeed much 
grace, inasmuch as he has given us free speech that we may, with 
our mouth, bring ourselves out of this pit which signifies " depth 
of sin," and do it by three hard ways, called Cordis contricione. 
Oris confessione. Operis satisfactione. That is, through contrition 
of the heart, through opening our mouth, and the performance of 
good works. Cordis contritione moritur peccatum. oris confessione 
defertur ad tumulum. operis satisfactione tumulatur in perpetuum. 
When we are sorry in our own heart that we have sinned, then 
we destroy our sins. When we come to confession, we do with 
our sins as we do with the dead ; for after a man is dead we lay 
his body in the tomb. Even so you lay your sins in their tomb. 
When you receive absolution of the sins you have committed 
against God's commandments, then you have your sins pardoned. 
After your absolution, you bury your sins, and bring yourselves 
out of their controlling power. Per ieremiam notatur quilibet pec- 

1 The quotations here and below are not from the Bible. They probably 
belong to the Latin original (here attributed to St. Gregory) from which the 
Homily is more or less closely translated. Compare 2 Peter ii, 21. 

2 Compare Ps. lxix, 15 (or lxviii, 16 in the Vulgate) : " neque urgeat super 
me puteus os suum." The words quoted are probably a gloss upon this verse. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



391 



cator qui in suo peccato moram facit. From the prophet Jeremiah 
we further learn that every man is sinful who lies in heavy sin, 
and will not slacken its hold by honest confession, funiculi ama- 
ritudines penitencie significant. The ropes that were thrown to him 
signify the severity of confession, for no one of us is so solid that he 
has not committed three capital sins which made his body very 
weak before he has received the absolution thereof, panni circum- 
positi funibus - r ecclesie sacramenta significant quibus penitencie duricia 
mitigatur. The king's house denotes the holy church, and the 
clothes that were sent from this king's house to wind the ropes 
with denote the holy orisons that men sung in the holy church, 
and the holy sacraments that hallow men for the forgiveness of 
all sinners. Dear brethren, now you have heard the signification 
which I have given to you of this pit, and the meaning of the 
prophet, and what was meant by the ropes, and what by the cloths 
in which they were wound. Now hear what sort of things there 
were in this pit. There dwelt in it four kinds of reptiles that now 
destroy all this middle earth. In it dwell spotted adders that bear 
poison under their tongue ; black toads that have poison in their 
heart ; yellow frogs and crabs. Crabs are a kind of sea-fish, and 
this fish is of such a nature that the more it tries to swim forward 
with the water the more it swims backward ; and the old crab said 
to the young one why don't you swim forward in the sea as other 
fishes do, and it said: Dear mother, you swim before me, and 
teach me how I shall swim forward ; and she began to swim for- 
ward with the stream and then against it. The spotted adder 
denotes the spotted people that dwell in this world, and speak as 
fairly before their fellow Christians as if they would clasp them 
to their bosoms, and as soon as their backs are turned, twitch and 
pull them to pieces with evil words. Hit eciam sunt doctores 6° 
falsi christiani. The men that thus beslander their fellow Chris- 
tians, have the name of Christians, although they are Christ's ene- 
mies and manslayers, for they slay their own soul and drag it into 
the everlasting torments of hell. The black toads that have the 
poison in their heart denote those rich men that have so much of 
worldly goods, and are unable to spare anything of their eating 
and drinking to do good therewith for the love of God Almighty, 
who has given it all to them ; but lay thereon as the toad does on 
the earth, that he may never fail to eat his fill, so afraid he is lest 
the earth may be wanting to him. This very wealth that thus 
weighs upon them turns to black poison, for through it they fall 
into those awful pains which no man ever could give us an ac- 
count of. Those yellow clothes denote them that adorn their 
person ; for the yellow cloth is the devil's noose. 1 Women thus at- 

1 Some words seem to have been omitted in the original after the word 
" elates." The meaning seems to be as follows : These yellow clothes (betoken 
women who go gaudily attired to render themselves objects of attraction), for 
the yellow cloth is the devil's halter. 



392 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



tired may be called the devil's mousetrap, for then the men will 
come to the trap set for them with treacherous cheese and roast 
baits so that it shall smell sweet, and through the sweet smell of 
the cheese, they entice many a mouse to the trap. In the same 
way many of these women besmear themselves with blanchet, 1 
which is the devil's soap, as they clothe themselves in yellow 
clothing, which is the devil's dress, and then look at themselves 
in the mirror, which is the devil's snare. Thus they do, to make 
themselves look fine, and to draw bad men to their homes, but in 
doing so they ruin their character. Now, dear brethren, for the 
love of God, shun the devil's mousetrap, and beware of being 
the spotted adder or the black toad or the yellow frog — from all 
which and from all sins, may the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost protect us without end, per omnia secula seculorum. Amen. 

The reader may well be astonished to find so much 
Latin in a sermon preached by a native preacher to a na- 
tive audience. But this was the custom of the age, and 
borrowed from the Norman clergy, many of whom, unable 
to speak English, often delivered their entire sermon in 
Latin. A passage from the Croyland History states that 
Gislebert, or Gilbert, one of the founders of the Univer- 
sity of Cambridge, used to employ Latin as well as French 
on such occasions. So Giraldus Cambrensis tells us that, 
in a progress which he made through Wales in 1186, to 
assist Archbishop Baldwin in preaching a new crusade 
for the delivery of the Holy Land, he was always most suc- 
cessful when he appealed to the people in a Latin sermon ; 
he asserts, indeed, that they did not understand a word of 
it, although it never failed to melt them into tears, and to 
make them come in crowds to take the cross. No doubt 
they were acted upon chiefly through their ears and their 
imaginations, and for the most part only supposed that 
they comprehended what they were listening to ; but it 
is probable that their self-deception was assisted by their 
catching a word or phrase here and there, the meaning of 
which they really understood. The Latin tongue must 
in those days have been heard in common life on a thou- 
sand occasions, from which it has now passed away. It 
was the language of all the learned professions, of law and 
physic as well as of divinity, in all their grades. It was 
in Latin that the teachers at the universities (many of 
whom, as well as of the ecclesiastics, were foreigners) de- 

1 Blanchet, a kind of wheaten powder used by ladies as a cosmetic. 
" With blaunchette and other flour, 
To make him gwyther (whiter) of colour." — Robert of Brunne. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



393 



livered their prelections in all the sciences, and that all 
the disputations and other exercises among the students 
were carried on. It was the same at all the monastic 
schools and other seminaries of learning. The number of 
persons by whom these various institutions were attended 
was very great ; they were of all ages from boyhood to 
advanced manhood ; and poor scholars must have been 
found in every village, mingling with every class of the 
people, in some one or other of the avocations which they 
followed in the intervals of their attendance at the univer- 
sities, or after they had finished their education, from 
parish priests down to wandering beggars. 



La$amon's Brut. 
About a. d. 1205. 

The " Brut " is a versified chronicle of the legendary history of Britain. It 
begins with the destruction of Troy and the flight of ^Eneas, from whom came 
Brut, or Brutus, who laid the foundation of the British monarchy, and goes down 
to the reign of Athelstan. 

The author of this Chronicle is La^amon, or Laweman, a priest residing at 
Ernely (now called Areley), on the Severn, near Redstone in Worcestershire. 
His authorities, as he himself tells us, were three : " The English book that St. 
Bede made" (that is, Bede's Ecclesiastical History) ; " a Latin work by St. Albin 
and Austin," of whose historical writings nothing is known ; and a " book that a 
Frence clerk hight Wace made." 

Wace's Brut is in Norman-French. It contains 15,300 lines, which La3a- 
mon has expanded into 32,250. " The Englishman's additions are," says Mr. 
Marsh, " the finest parts of the work, almost the only parts, in fact, which can 
be held to possess any poetical merit." 

The language of La3amon belongs to that transition period in which the 
groundwork of Anglo-Saxon phraseology and grammar still existed, although 
gradually yielding to the influence of the popular forms of speech. We find in 
it, as in the later portion of the Saxon Chronicle, marked indications of a ten- 
dency to adopt those terminations and sounds which characterize a language in 
a state of change, and which are apparent also in some other cognate Conti- 
nental dialects. As showing the progress made in the course of two centuries 
in departing from the ancient grammatical forms, as found in Anglo-Saxon 
manuscripts, may be mentioned the use of a as an article ; the change of the 
Anglo-Saxon terminations a and an into e and en, as well as the disregard of in- 
flexions and genders ; the masculine forms given to neuter nouns in the plural ; 
the neglect of the feminine terminations of adjectives and pronouns, and con- 
fusion between the definite and indefinite declensions ; the introduction of the 
preposition to before infinitives, and occasional use of weak preterites of verbs 
and participles instead of strong ; the constant occurrence of en for on in the 
plurals of verbs, and frequent elision of the final e ; together with the uncertainty 
in the rule for the government of prepositions. 

La3amon preserves the old unrhymed alliterative versification, falling oc- 
casionally into the use of rhyme, which is, of course, due to Norman-French 
influence. 

There are two manuscripts of La3amon's Brut, the one written early in the 
thirteenth century, the other about half a century later. The earlier version is 

27 



394 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



in the Southern dialect, while the later has many Midland peculiarities. The 
following specimen is taken from near the end of this voluminous work, where 
the elder text only is preserved : 

A BRITISH VIEW OF ATHELSTAN's REIGN. 

pa tiden comen sone, 

to CadwaSlader kinge 

into Brutaine, 

f er far he wunede 

mid Alaine kinge, 

f e wes of his cunne. 

Me dude him to understonde 

of al Jnsse londe ; 

hu ASelstan her com liSen, 

ut of Sex londen ; 

and hu he al Angle lond, 

sette on his agere hond ; 

and hu he sette moting, 

& hu he sette husting ; 

and hu he sette sciren, 

and makede frift of deoren ; 

& hu he sette halimot, 

& hu he sette hundred 

and fa nomen of fan tunen, 

on Sexisce runen : 

and Sexis he gan kennen, 

fa nomen of fan monnen : 

and al me him talde, 

fa tiden of f isse londe. 

Wa wes Cadwaladere, 

fat he wes on Hue. 

TRANSLATION. 

The tidings came soon 

to Cadwalader king 

into Britanny, 

where he was dwelling 

with Alan the king, 

who was of his kin. 

Men did him to understand 

all about this land ; 

how Athelstan had here embarked, 

coming out of Saxon parts ; 

and how he all England 

set on his own hand ; 

and how he called meetings, 

and organized hustings ; 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 395 

and how he settled shires, 

and made law for game ; 

and how he appointed synods 

and how he set hundreds 

and the names of the towns 

in Saxon runes ; 

and in Saxish he was going to know 

the names of [British] men : 

and so they told him all 

the tidings of this land. 

Wo was to Cadwalader, 

that he was alive. 



Ormulum. 

The Ormulum consists of an imperfect series of Homilies, in alternate verses 
of eight and seven syllables, or in iambic verse of fifteen syllables, with a metri- 
cal point in the MS. after the eighth. It is wanting in alliteration and rhyme, 
and was probably written in imitation of some mediaeval Latin poems with which 
the writer was acquainted. The author was Orm, or Ormin, a canon regular of 
the Order of St. Augustine, and he called the poem after his own name, as he 
himself tells us in the opening : 

" piss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum, 
Forrpi fatt Orrm itt wrohhte." 

Orm was a purist in orthography, and for the right pronunciation of his 
vowels he adopts a method of his own, and directs his readers to observe that 
the consonant is always doubled after a short vowel, and there only. In his poem 
we find for the first time the word English in its mature form. La3amon has 
the forms englise, englis, cenglis, anglisce ; but Orm has Enngliss, and still more 
frequently the fully-developed form Ennglissh. The author is lavish of con- 
sonants. Had his orthography been generally adopted, we would have had in 
English not only the mm and nn with which the German is studded, but many 
other double consonants which we do not now possess. How great a study 
Orm had made of this subject we are not left to gather from observation of his 
spelling, for he has emphatically called attention to it in the opening of his 
rule. 

HOW TO SPELL. 

And whase wilenn shall J>iss boc 

efft o)>err sife writtenn 
himm bidde ice )>at he't write rihht 

swa summ Jnss boc him teacher 
and tatt he loke well )>att he 

an bocstaff write twiggess 
eggwhaer poet itt uppo )>iss boc 

iss writen o ]>att wise 
loke well ]>att he't write swa, 

for he ne magg nohht elless 
on Ennglissh writenn rihht te word, 

}>att wite he well to so)>e. 



396 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

TRANSLATION. 

And whoso shall purpose to make another copy of this book, 
I beg him to write it exactly as this book directeth ; and that he 
look well that he write a lettre twice wherever upon this book it 
is written in that wise. Let him look carefully that he write it so, 
for else he can not write it correctly in English, that know he 
well for certain. 

The date of the Ormulum is not quite fixed. By most writers it is ascribed 
to a later date than La3amon's Brut. From the absence of Norman-French 
words, it seems to be much earlier. The simplicity of its language, almost as 
uninflected as Chaucer's, is due to its locality, as it was probably written in the 
neighborhood of Lincoln, where the East-Midland dialect was spoken, with a 
tolerably strong infusion of the Danish element. The following extract exhibits 
the peculiarities of the author's spelling : 

CHARACTER OF A GOOD MONK. 

Forr himm birr]? beon full clene mann, 

and all wi]?}?utenn ahhte, 
Buttan ]?att mann himm findenn shall 

unnorne mete and waede. 
And tser iss all ]?att eor]?lig ]?ing 

}?att minnstremann birr]? aghenn 
Wi]?]?utenn cnif and shsepe and camb 

and nedle, giff he't georne]?}?. 
And all ]?iss shall mann findenn himm 

and wel himm birr]? itt gemenn ; 
For birr]? himm nowwferr don J?seroff, 

ne gifenn itt ne sellenn. 
And himm birr]? sefre standenn inn 

to lofenn Godd and wurr]?en, 
And agg himm birr]? beon fressh ]?aerto 

bi daggess and by nihhtess ; 
And tat iss harrd and Strang and tor 

and hefig lif to ledenn, 
And for]?i birr]? wel clawwstremann 

onnfangenn mikell mede, 
Att hiss Drihhtin Allwseldennd Godd, 

forr whamm he mikell swinnke]?}?. 
And all hiss herrte and all hiss lusst 

birr]? agg beon towarrd heoffhe, 
And himm birr]? geornenn agg }?att an 

hiss Drihhtin wel to cwemenn, 
Wi}?]? daggsang and wi]?}? uhhtennsang 

wi}?]? messess and wi]?}? beness, &c. 

TRANSLATION. 

For he ought to be a very pure man 
and altogether without property, 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 397 

Except that he shall be found in 

simple meat and clothes. 
And that is all the earthly thing 

that minster-man should own, 
Except a knife and sheath and comb 

and needle, if he want it. 
And all this shall they find for him, 

and it is his duty to take care of it, 
For he may neither do with it, 

neither give it nor sell. 
And he must ever stand in (vigorously) 

to praise and worship God, 
And aye must he be fresh thereto 

by daytime and by nights ; 
And that's a hard and stiff and rough 

and heavy life to lead, 
And therefore well may cloister'd man 

receive a mickle meed 
At the hand of his Lord Allwielding God, 

for whom he mickle slaveth. 
And all his heart and his desire 

ought aye be toward heaven ; 
And he should yearn for that alone, 

his Master well to serve 
With day-time chant and chant at prime, 

with masses and with prayers, &c. 

" The poems of Layamon and Orm may be regarded as appertaining to the 
old Saxon literature. Layamon and Orm both cling to the old in different ways ; 
Layamon in his poetic form, Orm in his diction. Both also bear traces, in dif- 
ferent ways, of the earlier processes of that great change which the French was 
now working in the English language. The long story of the Brut is told in 
lines which affect the ancient style ; but the style is chaotic, and abounds in ac- 
cidental decorations, like a thing constructed out of ruins. In the Ormulum 
the regularity is perfect, but it is the regularity of the new style of versification, 
learnt from foreign teachers. The iambic measure sits admirably on the ancient 
diction ; for Orm, new as he is in his metre, is old in his grammar and vocabu- 
lary. The works differ as the men differed ; the one, a secular priest, has the 
country taste for an irregular poetry with alliteration and every other reverbera- 
tory charm ; the other, a true monk, carries his regularity into everything — ar- 
rangement, metre, orthography. He is an English-speaking Dane, but educated 
in a monastery that has already been ruled by a succession of French abbots." — 
Earle. 



The Ancren Riwle. 

There is also to be mentioned, together with the Brut of Layamon and the 
Ormulum, a work of considerable extent in prose which has been assigned to 
the same interesting period in the history of the language, the Ancren Riwle, 
that is, the Anchorites', or rather Anchoresses', Rule, being a treatise on the 
duties of the monastic life, written evidently by an ecclesiastic, and probably 
one in a position of eminence and authority, for the direction of three ladies to 



398 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



whom it is addressed, and who, with their domestic servants or lay sisters, ap- 
pear to have formed the entire community of a religious house situated at Tarente 
(otherwise called Tarrant-Kaines, Kaineston, or Kingston) in Dorsetshire. 

In another part of this volume we have noticed that early English, when 
after a century and a half it reappeared in writing, exhibited a vast number of 
Dutch and Scandinavian words in familiar use, showing that they had long 
been current in the language. The few French words that gradually crept into 
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and such others as are found in Layamon's Brut, in 
which their number does not exceed one hundred and seventy, and in the Or- 
mulum, in which they are still less numerous, would lead us to infer that, if 
French words had become at all current in the spoken language, they were but 
little used in writing at the beginning of the thirteenth century. This, how- 
ever, depended entirely upon the locality, and the readers to whom it was ad- 
dressed. The Ancren Rivvle, for instance, which belongs to the same age as the 
works of Layamon and Orm, but which was written for the special guidance of 
some pious nuns in Dorsetshire, and therefore in a dialect with which they were 
familiar, shows quite a large infusion of French words in addition to the many 
words of Dutch then current in the language, and which, being written in almost 
every instance the same or nearly so in early English as they are now in modern 
Dutch, indicate a great similarity of pronunciation, writing in those days being 
far more phonetic than it is at present. Without referring to the many words, 
especially verbs, which Dutch and the original Anglo-Saxon had in common, 
and which in early English assume the Dutch mode of orthography, we notice 
here the following : 



ANCREN RIWLE. 


DUTCH. 


MODERN ENGLISH. 


binden 


binden 


to bind 


bitter 


bitter 


bitter 


breken 


breken 


to break 


buten 


buiten 


but, except 


caf 

cristendom 


kaf 

Christendom 


chaf 
Christendom 


cwellen 


kwellen 


to torment (to kill) 


delen 


deelen 


to divide 


delven 


delven 


to delve 


drinken 


drinken 


to drink 


ei; eiren 
elc 


ei j eieren 
elk 


egg; eggs 
each 


engel 


engel 


angel 


grim 
habben 


grim 
hebben 


severe 
to have 


huren 


huren 


to hire 


idel 
kakelen 


ydel 
kakelen 


vain 

to cackle 


kannuk 


kanunnik 


canon 


keif 
kerven 


kalf 
kerven 


calf 

to cut, carve 


kneden 


kneden 


to knead 


kussen 


kussen 


to kiss 


laten 


laten 


to let 


leggen 
lenen 


leggen 
leenen 


to lay 
to lend 


leren 


leeren 


to learn, to teach 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



399 



ANCREN RIWLE. 


DUTCH. 


MODERN ENGLISH. 


lief 


lief 


dear (I would as lief) 


lof 


lof 


praise 


licham 


lichaam 


body- 


lyf 


lyf 


body (as in life-guard) 


lust 


lust 


longing desire 


lusten 


lusten 


to like 


meid 


meid 


maid 


men 


men 


some one 


menen 


meenen 


to mean 


merke 


merk 


mark 


milde 


mild 


mild 


missen 


missen 


to miss 


mooder 


moeder 


mother 


mot 


mot, moet 


must 


nagle 


nagel 


nail 


nimen 


nemen 


to take 


openien 


openen 


to open 


puffen 


puffen 


to blow 


ruwe 


ruw 


rough 


samen 


zamen 


together 


sherp 


sherp 


sharp 


schriven 


schryven 


to write ; to confess 


schrift 


schrift 


writing; confession 


seggen 


zeggen 


to say 


senden 


zenden 


to send 


setten 


zetten 


to put 


singen 


zingen 


to sing 


sitten 


zitten 


to sit 


smak 


smaak 


taste 


smaken 


smaken 


to taste 


smeren 


smeren 


to grease 


smiten 


smyten 


to throw ; smite 


speowen 


spuwen 


to spit 


spreden 


spreiden 


to spread 


stark 


sterk 


strong 


suster 


zuster 


sister 


tellen 


tellen 


to count 


treden 


treden 


to tread 


tun 


tuin 


farm ; town 


valien 


valien 


to fall 


varen 


varen 


to go; fare 


vel 


vel 


skin 


veol, veole 


veel j veele 


much; many 


vetten 


vetten 


to fatten 


vinden 


vinden 


to find 


vlesch 


vleesch 


flesh 


volk 


volk 


folk 



40O 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



ANCREN RIWLE. 


DUTCH. 


MODERN. ENGLISH, 


vorsaken 


verzaken 


to forsake 


vorstoppen 


verstoppen 


to stop up 


vorwerpen 


verwerpen 


to reject 


vot 


voel 


foot 


waden 


waden 


to wade 


wasschen 


wasschen 


to wash 


wel 


wel 


well 


weoreld 


wereld 


world 


werpen 


werpen 


to throw 


winnen 


winnen 


to win 



Not less numerous are the French words that here make their appearance: 



ANCREN RIWLE. 


FRENCH. 


MODERN ENGLISH. 


acwiten 


acquitter 


to release 


andetted 


endette' 


endebted 


asaumple 


exemple 


example 


autorite 


autorite 


authority 


best 


bite 


beast 


blamen 


b lamer 


to blame 


chast 


chaste 


chaste 


chastete 


chastete* 


chastity 


chastien 


chdtier 


to chastise 


chastiement 


chdtiment 


chastisement 


chaungement 


changement 


change 


chere 


chere 


cheer; countenance 


cherite 


charite" 


charity 


coimsail 


conseil 


counsel 


crien 


crier 


to cry 


crime 


couronne 


crown 


crunien 


couronner 


to crown 


cwitaunce 


quittance 


payment 


dame 


dame 


lady 


debonerte 


from de'bonnaire 


kindness 


depeinten 


de'peindre 


to depict 


destruen 


de'truire 


to destroy 


dettes 


dettes 


debts 


dettur 


dibiteur 


debtor 


duble 


double 


double 


entente 


entente 


meaning; intention 


feste 


fete 


feast 


fol 


fol 


foolish 


grace 


grdce 


grace 


gref 


grief 


grief 


jugement 


jugement 


judgment 


kerchen 


old French cachier 


to catch 



AND C 


)F THE ENGLISH L 


ANGUAGE. 


ANCREN RIWLE. 


FRENCH. 


MODERN ENGLISH. 


large 


large 


large; liberal 


lescun 


lecon 


lesson 


lettres 


lettres 


letters 


maister 


maitre 


master 


meistrie 


maitrise 


mastery 


mercer 


mercier 


merchant 


merci 


merci 


mercy 


messager 


messager 


messenger 


mesure 


mesure 


measure 


miracle 


miracle 


miracle 


neoces 


noces 


wedding 


noble 


noble 


noble 


noise 


noise 


noise; quarrel 


ordre 


ordre 


religious order 


paien 


payer 


to pay 


parais 


paradis 


paradise 


parlur 


parloir 


parlor 


parten 


partir 


to depart 


passen 


passer 


to pass; surpass 


passiun 


passion 


suffering; passion 


patriark 


patriarche 


patriarch 


peintunge 


peinture 


painting 


person 


personne 


person 


preisen 


old French preiser 


to praise 


prechen 


precher 


to preach 


preoven 


prouver 


to prove 


pris 


prix 


price; praise 


prophete 


prophete 


prophet 


purgatorie 


purgatoire 


purgatory 


r aim sun 


rancon 


ransom 


reisun 


raison 


reason 


religiun 


religion 


religion 


religius 


religieux 


monk ; nun 


remedie 


remede 


remedy 


riwle 


regie 


rule 


saluz 


salut 


salvation 


seint 


saint 


saint 


semblaunt 


semblant 


appearance 


serven 


servir 


to serve 


sot 


sot 


stupid 


spuse 


epouse 


spouse; bride 


striven 


old French estriver 


to strive 


sukurs 


secours 


help 


temptaciun 


tentation 


temptation 


testament 


testament 


testament 


tresor 


tre'sor 


treasure 


turnement 


toumoi 


tourney 



401 



4 02 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

A few sentences from that part of the book which treats of domestic mat- 
ters will afford a sufficient specimen of this curious work. 



THE NUNS ARE TO KEEP NO BEAST BUT A CAT. 

^e, mine leoue sustren, ne schulen habben no best, bute kat 
one. Ancre pet haue<5 eihte p unche'S bet husewif, ase Marthe was, 
pen ancre • ne none wise ne mei heo beon Marie, mid gri'Sfulnesse 
of heorte. Vor peonne mot heo penchen of pe kues foddre, and 
of heorde-monne huire, oluhnen pene heiward, warien hwon me 
punt hire, & 3elden, pauh, pe hermes. Wat Crist, J>is is lodlich 
ping hwon me makeS mone in tune of ancre eihte. pauh, }if eni 
mot nede habben ku, loke pet heo none monne ne eilie, ne ne 
hermie • ne pet hire pouht ne beo nout peron i-uestned. Ancre 
ne ouh nout to habben no ping pet drawe utward hire heorte. 
None cheff are ne driue }e. Ancre pet is cheapild, heo cheapetS 
hire soule pe chepmon of helle. Ne wite $e nout in oure huse of 
o$er monnes pinges, ne eihte, ne clones ' ne nout ne underuo }e pe 
chirche uestimenz, ne pene caliz, bute $if strendSe hit makie, oSer 
muchel eie ' vor of swuche witunge is i-kumen muchel vuel ofte- 
si'Sen. Wiftinnen ower woanes ne lete }e nenne mon slepen. ^if 
muchel neode mid alle makers breken ower hus, pe hwule pet hit 
euer is i-broken, loke pet $e habben perinne mid ou one wummon 
of clene Hue deies & nihtes. 



TRANSLATION. 

Ye shall not possess any beast, my dear sisters, except only a 
cat. An anchoress that hath cattle appears as Martha was, a bet- 
ter housewife than anchoress ; nor can she in any wise be Mary 
with peacefulness of heart. For then she must think of the cow's 
fodder, and of the herdsman's hire, flatter the heyward, defend 
herself when her cattle is locked up in the pound, and moreover 
pay the damage. Christ knoweth, it is an odious thing when peo- 
ple in the town complain of anchoresses' cattle. If, however, any 
one must needs have a cow, let her take care that she neither 
annoy nor harm any one, and that her own thoughts be not fixed 
thereon. An anchoress ought not to have any thing that draweth 
her heart outward. Carry ye on no traffic. An anchoresse that 
is a buyer and seller selleth her soul to the chapman of hell. Do 
not take charge of other men's property in your house, nor of 
their cattle, nor their clothes, neither receive under your care the 
church vestments, nor the chalice, unless force compel you, or 
great fear, for oftentimes much harm has come from such care- 
taking. Let no men sleep within your walls. If, however, great 
necessity should cause your house to be used, see that as long as 
it is used, ye have therein with you a woman of unspotted life day 
and night. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 403 

English Version of Genesis and Exodus. 

Nothing is known of the author of this interesting version which was writ- 
ten about the year 1250, and comprises 2,536 verses. The dialect is believed to 
be the East-Midland of South Suffolk. The following lines refer to the selling 
of Joseph : 

t5e chapmen skiuden t here fare, 
in to Egipte ledden (Sat ware ; 
wiS Putifar tie kinges stiward, 
he maden swiSe bigetel forward ; 
so michel fe $or is hem told ; 
he hauen him bogt, he hauen sold. 

translation. 

The chapmen hastened their departure, 

into Egypt led that chattel ; 

with Potiphar the king's steward, 

they made very profitable bargain ; 

so much money there is them told ; 

these have him bought, and those have sold. 

The author thus concludes his poem : 

God schilde hise sowle fro helle bale, 

tSe made it Sus on engel tale ! 

and he Sat Sise lettres wrot, 

God him helpe weli mot, 

and berge is sowle fro sorge & grot 

of helle pine, cold & hot ! 

and alle men, $e it heren wilen, 

God leue hem \n his blisse spilen 

among engeles & seli men, 

wiSuten ende in reste ben, 

and luue & pais us bi-twen, 

and god so graunte, amen, amen ! 

TRANSLATION. 

God shield his soul from the tortures of hell, 

that shaped it thus in English narrative ! 

and he that these letters wrote 

may God help him effectually, 

and preserve his soul from sorrow and tears, 

and of the pains of hell, cold and hot. 1 

and all men who are willing to hear, 

1 Cold &* hot, the two extreme punishments in hell. Those in eternal per- 
dition had to endure alternately icy coldness and fiery heat. — See Measure for 
Measure, iii, 1. 122. 



404 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

may God grant them in His bliss to play 
among the angels and the blessed, 
and without end be in rest. 
with us between love and peace 
and so may God grant. Amen ! 



The Owl and the Nightingale. 

This facetious poem is attributed to Nicholas de Guildford, who is men. 
tioned in the poem itself as living at Portesham in Dorsetshire. The precise 
date of the piece is a matter of dispute, some ascribing it to the reign of Henry 
III, and others to that of Edward I ; but it is certainly not later than the time 
of Henry III. The poem is written in the dialect of the South of England, but 
is free from any of those broad provincialisms which characterize any particular 
county. 

The subject is a bitter altercation between the owl and the nightingale, such 
as might be supposed to arise out of the neighborhood of two creatures not only 
unlike in their tastes and habits, but unequally endowed with gifts and accom- 
plishments. The following picture of the owl's attitude as she listens to the 
nightingale's song, will afford some taste of the humor as well as of the diction 
of this poem, which is complete in 1,794 lines : 

pos word a^af J?e ni3tingale, 
and after fare longe tale, 
he songe so lude and so scharpe, 
ri}e so me grulde schille harpe. 
pes hule luste pider ward, 
and hold hire e3en oJ>er ward, 
and sat to suolle and i bol^e, 
also ho hadde on frogge i SU0I3C 

TRANSLATION. 

These words returned the nightingale, 
and after that there long tale, 
he sang so loud and so sharp, 
as if one trilled a shilly harp. 
This owl she listened thitherward, 
and held her eyen otherward ; 
and sat all swollen and out-blown 
as if she had swallowed a frog. 



The Story of Havelok the Dane. 

The Lay of Havelok the Dane, an Anglo-Danish story, which contains the 
legend of the origin of the English town of Grimsby is in its present form a 
translation from a French romance entitled " Le Lai de Aveloc," written in the 
first half of the twelfth century, and probably founded upon an Anglo-Saxon 
original. Of the English translator, who wrote in an East-Midland dialect, we 
know nothing. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



405 



The following extract, showing how Grim became the founder of Grimsby, is 
taken from " The Ancient English Romance of Havelok the Dane," which con- 
tains 748 verses, and was written before the year 1300 : 

In Humber Grim bigan to lende, 
in Lindeseye, rij> at the nor)? ende, 
per sat is ship up on the sond, 
but Grim it drou up to the lond ; 
and pere he made a lite cote, 
to him and to hise note. 
Bigan he fere for to erpe 
a litel hus to maken of erpe ; 
and for pat Grim pat place aute, 
pe stede of Grim the name laute, 
so pat Grimesbi callep alle 
that per-offe speken alle, 
and so shulen men callen it ay, 
bituene pis and domesday. 

TRANSLATION. 

In Humber Grim began to land, in Lindsey, right at the north 
end ; there sate his ship up on the sand, and Grim it drew up to 
the land ; and there he made a little hut, for himself and for his 
crew. In order to dwell there, he began to make of earth a little 
house ; and forasmuch as Grim owned that house-place, the 
homestead caught from Grim its name, so that all who speak of 
it call it Grimsby; and so shall they call it always between this 
and Doomsday. 

" As this poem is associated with Lincolnshire, we might expect to find many 
Danish words in it. But the number of those that can be clearly distinguished 
as such, is small. Unless it be the verb to call, there is no example in the quo- 
tation above. It can hardly be doubted that the Danish population which oc- 
cupied so much of the Anglian districts must have considerably modified our 
language. Their influence would probably have been greater, but for the cruel 
harrying of the North by William the Conqueror. The affinity of the Danish 
with the Anglian would make it easy for the languages to blend, and the same 
cause renders it difficult for us to distinguish the Danish contributions." — Earle. 



Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle. 

This versified Chronicle, a narrative of British and English affairs from the 
time of Brutus to the end of the reign of Henry III, was written about the year 
1300, and affords a good specimen of English at that early period in the shires 
bordering on North Wales. All that is known of the author is that he was a 
monk of the abbey of Gloucester. His work in the earlier part of it may be 
considered a free translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin History, but is 
altogether a very rude and lifeless composition. " This rhyming chronicle," 
says Warton, " is totally destitute of art or imagination. The author has clothed 
the fables of Monmouth in rhyme, which have often a more poetical air in Mon- 



4 o6 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

mouth's prose." Tyrwhitt refers to Robert of Gloucester as a proof of the fact 
that the English language at that time had already acquired a strong tincture of 
French. The author is the first English chronicler who stops to explain how it 
came that French, as well as English, was spoken in England ; and in doing so, 
he uses for the first time the word " Saxon," in that unhistorical sense which has 
led to so much error and confusion. He complains that there is no land that 
holdeth not to its kindly speech save England only ; and notices that the native 
speech of England was cut up into an endless variety of dialects, while the strange 
speech, which had come in with the Normans, was uniform and spoken after one 
fashion only. 1 

His Chronicle commences as follows : 

Engelond ys a wel god lond, ich wene of eche lond best, 

Yset in }>e ende of }?e world, as al in J?e West. 

pe see go]? hym al a boute, he stont as an yle. 

Here fon heo durre J?e lasse doute, but hit be J?orw gyle 

Of folc of ]?e selue lond, as me ha]? yseye wyle. 

From Sou]? to Nor}? he is long eighte hondred myle ; 

And foure hondred myle brod from Est to West to wende, 

Amydde ]?o lond as yt be, and noght as by ]?e on ende. 

Plente me may in Engelond of all gods yse, 

Bute folc yt forgulte o]?er yeres ]?e worse be. 

For Engelond ys ful ynow of fruyt and of tren, 

Of wodes and of parkes, ]?at joye yt ys to sen ; 

Of foules and of bestes, of wylde and tame al so ; 

Of salt fysch and eche fresch, and fayre ryueres j?er to ; 

Of welles swete and colde ynow, of lesen and of mede ; 

Of seluer or and of gold, of tyn and of lede ; 

Of stel, of yrn, and of bras ; of god corn gret won ; 

Of whyte and of wolle god, betere ne may be non. 

TRANSLATION. 

England is a very good land, I ween of every land (the) best ; 
set in the end of the world, as in the utter west. The sea goeth 
it all about; it standeth as an isle. Their foes they need the less 
fear, except it be through guile of folk of the same land, as has 
been seen sometime. From south to north it is eight hundred 
mile long ; and four hundred mile broad to go from east to west, 
that is, through the middle of the country and not as by the one 
end. Plenty of all goods men may in England see, unless the 
people are in fault or the years are bad. For England is full 
enough of fruit and of trees ; of woods and of parks, that joy it 
is to see ; of fowls and of beasts, wild and tame alike ; of salt fish 
and eke fresh, and fair rivers thereto ; of wells sweet and cold 
enow, of pastures and of meads ; of silver ore and of gold, of tin 
and of lead ; of steel, of iron, and of brass ; of good corn great 
store ; of wheat and of good wool, better may be none. 

1 See page 253. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



407 



Robert Manning, also called Robert of Brunne. 

This author, born at Brunne or Bourne in Lincolnshire within a few miles 
of Rutland, has been called the patriarch of the New English. In 1303 he be- 
gan to compile the Handlyng Synne, a work which, more than any former one, 
foreshadowed the road that English literature was to tread from that time for- 
ward. Like most other lays of King Edward I's time, it was a translation from 
a French poem, Manuel des Pechiez, and consists chiefly of a series of tales which 
may be considered as the most ancient specimens of the New Language. The 
English poem differs from the others that have gone before it in its diction ; for 
it contains a most scanty proportion of these Teutonic words that were soon to 
drop out of speech, and a most copious proportion of words and phrases bor- 
rowed from the French. Indeed, there are so many foreign words in his poem 
that we should set the writer fifty years later than his true date, had he not him- 
self written it down : 

" A pousynd and pre hundrede and pre 
In |>at tyme turnede y pys 
On Englysshe out of Frankys." 

In this book we catch our first glimpse of many a word and idiom that was 
destined to live forever, and as the writer informs us that it was for the unedu- 
cated that he wrote this Handlyng Synne, it shows how the different tides of 
speech flowing from Southern, western, and northern shires alike met in the 
neighborhood of Rutland, and how all helped to shape the New English. Rob- 
ert of Brunne had his own mother-tongue to start with — the Anglo-Danish dia- 
lect mixed with Norman French ; and how much has been the influence of that 
mixture, as spoken in the neighborhood of Rutland, upon the modern English, 
may be inferred from the remark of Mr. Latham, that " the laboring men of 
Huntingdon and Northampton speak what is usually called better English be- 
cause their vernacular dialect is most akin to that of the standard writers." It 
will be noticed that the author commonly writes y instead of z, a custom which 
lasted for two hundred years after. 

.... Nopyng is to man so dere, 3 
As womanys love yn gode manere. 
A gode woman ys mannys blyss, 
When hyr love ryght and stedfast ys. 
per ys no solace undyr hevene, 4 
Of al pat a man may nevene 5 
pat shuld a man so moche glew 6 
As a gode woman pat lovep trew. 
Ne derer ys none yn Goddy's hurde 7 
pan a chaste woman wip lovely wurde. 8 



3, dear. 4, heaven. 5, name. 6, delight. 7, family. 8, words. 



Richard Hampole. 

A hermit of the order of St. Augustine who wrote toward the year 1350, 
and contributed much to the growth and popularity of English poetry at that 
time. His poem, The Pricke of Conscience, of which the following is an extract, 
possesses a special interest from its being expressly stated to be written for those 
who could understand English only : 

44 To lewed men of Yngelonde 
pat konnep nopynge but Inglys unperstonde." 



4 o8 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

He thus describes heaven : 

.... per is lyf wipoute ony dep 
and per is youpe wipoute ony elde ; * 
and per is alle manere wephe to welde ; 2 
and per is reste wipoute ony travaille, 
and per is pees witpoute ony stryfe 
and per is alle manere lykynge of lyf, 
and per is bryght somer 3 ever to se 4 
and per is never wynter in pat countre, 
and per is more worshipe and honour, 
pan ever hadde kynge other 5 emperour. 
And per is grete melodee of Aungeles songe, 
and per is preysyng hem amonge. 
And per is alle manere frendshipe pat may be, 
and per is evere perfect love and charite. 
And per is wisdom wipoute folye 6 
and per is honeste wipoute vilenye; 7 
and pese a man may joyes of hevene call. 
And yutte 8 the most sovereyn joye of alle, 
is pe syght of Goddes bryght face 
in wham restep alle manere grace. 

I, age. 2, wield. 3, summer. 4, see. 5, or. 6, folly. 7, villainy. 8, yet. 

The following lines from the prologue to his " Speculum vita" or " Mirrour 
of lyf," written about the year 1350, have a historical importance from their 
positively stating that, at that period, English was generally understood. 

In Inglys tounge y schal yow telle, 

^if 1 ye so long wip me wyl duelle; 2 

ne 3 Latyn wil y speke ne 4 waste 

bot 5 Inglys pat men uses maste, 6 

for pat ys youre kynde 7 langage, 

pat ye hafe here most of usage ; 

pat can ech man unperstonde 

pat is born in Inglonde. 

For pat langage ys most schewed, 8 

als wel mo we 9 lerep 10 as lewed. 

Latyn, als y trowe 11 canne 12 nane 

bot po 13 pat hap hit 14 of schole tane ; 15 

som can Frankes and Latyn 

pat hanes 16 used courte and duellt 17 pereyn; 

and som canne o Latyn aparty 

pat canne Frankes bot febely 

and som unperstondep Inglys 

pat noper 18 canne Latyn ne Frankys. 

Bot lered and lewed, aide and younge 

alle unperstondep Inglysche tounge. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 409 

parefore y halde it maste syker 19 pon 20 

to shew pat Ian gage pat ilk 21 a man konne, 

and for all lewed men namely 

pat can no maner of clergy 22 

to kenne panne what ys maste nede ; 

for clerkes canne bape 23 se and rede 

in divers bokes of Holy writt 

how pey schul lyve, yf pay loke hit. 

Parefore y wylle me holly ** halde 

to pat langage pat Inglys ys calde. 25 

MSS. Bodl. 218, p. 217, ap Halliwell. 

I, if. 2, dwell. 3, neither. 4, nor. 5, but. 6, most. 7, natural. 8, 
used. 9, among. 10, learned, n, believe. 12, knows. 13, those. 14.it. 15, 
taken. 16, have. 17, dwelled. 18, neither. 19, certain. 20, then. 21, every. 
22, knowledge. 23, both. 24, wholly. 25, called. 



Laurence Minot. 
a. d. 1352. 

Laurence Minot lived and wrote about the middle of the fourteenth century. 
He composed eleven poems in celebration of the following battles and exploits 
of King Edward III: The Battle of Halidon Hill (1333) ; the taking of Ber- 
wick ; two poems on Edward's expedition to Brabant (1339) ; the Sea-Fight of 
Swine at the mouth of the West Scheldt (1340) ; the Siege of Tournay (1340) ; 
the Landing of Edward at La Hogue (1346) ; the Siege of Calais (1346) ; the 
Battle of Neville's Cross (1346) ; the Sea-Fight with the Spaniards off Winchel- 
sea (1350) ; and the Capture of Guisnes (1352). 

These poems, all in the Northumbrian dialect, are remarkable, if not for 
any poetical qualities of a high order, yet for a precision and neatness, as well as 
a force of expression, previously unexampled in English verse. There is a true 
martial tone and spirit too in them, which reminds us of the best old English 
heroic ballads, while it is better sustained, and accompanied with more refine- 
ment of style, than it usually is in the popular anonymous compositions of the 
time. As a sample we transcribe the one on Edward's expedition to Brabant, 
omitting the prologue which is in a different measure : 

Edward, oure cuwly king, 
In Braband has his woning, 1 
With mani cumly knight ; 
And in pat land, trewly to tell, 
Ordanis he still forto dwell 
To time 2 he think to fight. 

Now God, pat es of mightes maste, 3 
Grant him grace of pe Haly Gaste, 
His heritage to win ! 
And Mari moder, of mercy fre, 
Saue oure king and his men^e 4 
Fro sorow and schame and syn ! 
28 



410 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

pus in Braband has he bene, 
Whare he bifore was seldom sene, 
Forto pr^ue paire iapes ; 5 
Now no langer wil he spare, 
Bot vnto Fraunce fast will he fare, 
To confort him with grapes. 

Furp he ferd into France, 
God saue him fro mischance 
And all his cuwpany ! 
pe nobill due of Braband 
With him went into pat land, 
Redy to lif or dy. 

pan pe riche floure-de-lice 6 

Wan pare ful litill prise, 

Fast he fled for ferde ; 

pe right aire of pat cuntre* 

Es cumen, 7 with all his knightes fre, 

To schac him by pe berd. 

Sir Philip pe Valayse, 8 
Wit his men in po dayes, 
To batale had he thoght ; 9 
He bad his men pam puruay 
With-owten lenger delay, 
Bot he ne held it noght. 

He broght folk ful grete wone, 10 
Ay seuyn oganis 11 one, 
pat ful wele wapnid were ; 
Bot sone whe[n] he herd ascry 18 
pat king Edward was nere parby, 
pan durst he noght cum nere. 

In pat morni[n]g fell a myst, 

And when oure I[n]gliss men it wist, 

It changed all paire chere ; 

Oure king vnto God made his bone, 13 

And God sent him gude confort sone, 

pe weder wex ful clere. 

Oure king and his men held pe felde 
Stalwortly, with spere and schelde, 
And thoght to win his right, 
With lordes, and with knightes kene 
And oper doghty men bydene, 14 
pat war ful frek 15 to fight. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 411 

When sir Philip of France herd tell 

pat king Edward in feld walld 16 dwell, 

pan gayned him no gle ; 17 

He traisted of no better bote, 18 

Bot both on hors and on fote 

He hasted him to fie. 

«. 

It semid he was ferd for strokes, 
When he did fell his grete okes 
Obout 19 his pauilyoune; 
Abated was fan all his pride, 
For langer fare durst he noght bide, 
His bost was broght all doune. 

pe king of Berne 20 had cares colde, 

pat was ful hardy and bolde 

A stede to vmstride, 21 

pe king als 22 of Nauerne, 23 

War f aire feld ** in f e ferene, 

paire heuiddes 25 forto hide. 

And leues 26 wele, it es no lye, 

pe felde hat 27 Flema#grye 28 

pat king Edward was in, 

With princes fat war stif ande bolde, 

And dukes fat war doghty tolde 29 

In batayle to bigin. 

pe princes, fat war riche on raw, 30 
Gert nakers strike 31 and truwpes blaw, 
And made mirth at f aire might ; 
Both alblast 33 and many a bow 
War redy railed 33 opon a row, 
And ful frek forto fight. 

Gladly f ai gaf mete and drink, 

So fat fai suld fe better swink, 34 

pe wight 35 men fat far ware. 

Sir Philip of Fraunce fled for dout, 

And hied him hame with all his rout ; 

Coward, God giff him care ! 

For fare fan had f e lely flowre 

Lorn all halely 36 his honowre, 

pat sogat fled 37 for ferd ; 

Bot oure king Edward come ful still, 38 

When fat he trowed no harm him till, 39 

And keped him in fe berde. 40 

1, dwelling. 2, fill the time. 3, most of the might. 4, followers. 5, jeers. 
6, fleur-de-lis. 7, come. 8, Philip VI, de Valois, King of France. 9, informed 



412 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

his men in those days that he had a design to fight. 10, number, n, against. 
12, report. 13, prayer, request. 14, besides. 15, were full eager. 16, would 
(was dwelling). 17, then no glee, or joy, was given him. 18, he trusted to no 
better expedient. 19, about. 20, Bohemia. 21, bestride. 22, also. 23, Na- 
varre. 24, were fairly frightened. 25, heads. 26, believe. 27, was called. 
28, the village of La Flamengrie. 29, reckoned. 30, richly clad in a row. 31. 
caused timbals to be struck. 32, arblast, or crossbow. 33, placed. 34, should 
the better work. 35, stout. 36, lost wholly. 37, got put to flight. 38, came 
back quietly at his ease. 39, when he perceived there was no harm intended 
him. 40, and caught him by the beard. 



William Langland. 

It has undoubtedly been noticed that Minot's verses are thickly sprinkled 
with what is called alliteration, or the repetition of words having the same com- 
mencing letter, either immediately after one another, or with the intervention 
only of one or two other words, generally unemphatic or of subordinate impor- 
tance. Alliteration, which we have found there combined with rhyme, was in 
an earlier stage of English poetry employed as the substitute for that recurrence 
of like beginnings serving the same purpose, which at a later period was accom- 
plished by like endings, that is, by rhyme. To the English of" the period before 
the conquest, until its very latest stages, rhyme was unknown, and down to the 
tenth century English verse appears to have known no other ornament except 
that of alliteration. Hence, naturally, even after the practice of rhyme had 
been borrowed from the Norman writers, the native poetry retained for a time 
more or less of its original habit. Thus, in Layamon we find alliterative and 
rhyming couplets intermixed ; in other cases, as in Minot, we have the rhyme 
only bespangled with alliteration. At this date, in fact, the difficulty probably 
would have been to avoid alliteration in writing verse ; all the old customary 
phraseologies of poetry had been molded upon that principle ; and indeed al- 
literative expression has in every age, and in many other languages as well as 
English, had a charm for the popular ear, so that it has always largely prevailed 
in proverbs and other such traditional forms of words ; nor is it by any means 
altogether discarded as an occasional embellishment of composition whether in 
verse or in prose. But there is one poetical work of the fourteenth century, of 
considerable extent, and in some respects of remarkable merit, in which the 
verse is without rhyme, and the system of alliteration is almost as regular as 
what we find in the poetry of the times before the conquest. This is the famous 
vision of Piers the Ploughman, or, as the subject is expressed at full length in 
the Latin title, Visio Willielmi de Petro Ploughman, that is, " The Vision of 
"William concerning Piers or Peter the Ploughman." 

According to tradition, the author of this poem, William Langland, Long- 
land, or Langley, was a native of Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire. He must 
have been born about the year 1332, and have died about 1400. He is supposed 
to have been educated near the Malvern Hills (Worcestershire), where he com- 
posed the first version of his poem shortly after the time of the great plague 
which ravaged England, A. D. 1361-1362. About the year 1377 he was living 
in London, where he wrote his second version of the poem, extending it to three 
times its former length. Subsequently he returned to the West of England, and 
again re-wrote his poem, with various additions and alterations, between 1380 
and 1390. 

The work is distributed into twenty sections, or passus, as he calls them. 
Each passus forms a separate vision, so that the work in reality is not so much 
one poem as a succession of poems. 

The general subject may be said to be the same with that of Bunyan's 
" Pilgrim's Progress," the exposition of the impediments and temptations which 
beset the crusade of this our mortal life ; and the method, too, like Bunyan's, is 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



413 



the allegorical ; but the spirit of the poetry is not so much picturesque, or even 
descriptive, as satirical. Vices and abuses of all sorts come in for their share of 
the exposure and invective ; but the main attack throughout is directed against 
the corruptions of the church, and the hypocrisy and worldliness, the ignorance, 
indolence, and sensuality, of the ecclesiastical orders. To this favorite theme 
the author constantly returns with new affection and sharper zest from any less 
high matter which he may occasionally take up. Hence it has been commonly 
assumed that he must have himself belonged to the ecclesiastical profession, that 
he was probably a priest or monk. And his " Vision " has been regarded not only 
as mainly a religious poem, but as almost a puritanical and Protestant work, 
although produced nearly two centuries before either Protestantism or Puritan- 
ism was ever heard of. There is nothing, however, of anti-Catholicism, properly 
so called, in Langland, either doctrinal or constitutional ; and even the anti- 
clerical spirit of his poetry is not more decided than what is found in the writ- 
ings of Chaucer, and the other popular literature of the time. The following 
extract is from the original poem, the dialect of which is Southern with Midland 
peculiarities : 

[From the earliest version of " The Vision of William concerning 
Fiers the Floughman. "] 
Frologus. 
In A somer sesun • whon softe 1 was ]?e sonne, 
I schop me in-to a schroud • A scheep as I were ; 3 
In Habite of an Hermite 3 vn-holy of werkes, 4 
Wende I wydene 5 in J>is world • wondres to here. 
Bote in a Mayes Morwnynge • on Maluerne hulles 6 
Me bi-fel a ferly • A Feyrie, me pouhte; 7 
I was weori of wandringe 8 • and wente me to reste 
Vndur a brod 9 banke • bi a Bourne syde, 10 
And as I lay and leonede n • and lokede on ]>e watres, 
I slumberde in A slepyng • hit sownede so murie. 13 

penne gon I Meeten • A Meruelous sweuene, 13 
pat I was in A Wildernesse • wuste I neuer where, 
And as I beo-heold in-to ]>e Est • an-hei$ to J>e sonne, 14 
I sauh a Tour on A Toft 15 • tritely I-maket ; 16 
A Deop Dale bi-neoJ?e • A dungun J>er-Inne, 
With deop dich and derk 17 • and dredful of siht. 18 

A Feir feld 19 ful of folk • fond I per bi-twene, 
Of alle maner of men • ]>e mene and J>e riche, 
Worchinge and wondringe • as J?e world aske)>. 
Su#zme putter he;;* 20 to ]>e plou^ • & pleiden htm ful seldene, 81 
In Eringe and in Sowynge 22 • swonken ful harde, 23 
pat monie of ]> eos wasturs • In Glotonye distruen. 24 

And summe putter hem to pruide • apparaylde# hem }w-after, 
In Cuntinau^ce 25 of clopi^ge • queinteliche de-Gyset; 26 
To preyere and to penaunce • putten heom monye, 27 
For loue of vr lord • liueden ful harde, 28 
In Hope for to haue • Heuene-riche blisse; 29 
As Ancres and Hermytes • ]>at holdep hem in heore Celles, 30 
Coueyte not in Cuntre • to carien a-boute, 31 
For non likerous lyfiode 32 • heore licam to plese. 33 



4 I4 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

And su#zme chosen Chaffare 34 • to cheeuen pe bettre, 35 
As hit semep to vre siht • pat suche men scholden ; 
And summe Murines to maken • as Munstrals cunne, 36 
And gete gold wip here gle 37 • giltles, I trowe 38 

Bote Iapers and Iangelers 39 • Iudas Children, 
Founden hem Fantasyes • and fooles hem maaden, 
And habbep wit at heor wille • to worchen }if hez/z luste. 40 
pat Poul prechep of hem 41 • I dar not preouen heere ; 
Qui loquitur turpiloquium • Hee is Luciferes hyne. 42 

Bidders 43 and Beggers • faste a-boute eoden, 44 
Til heor Bagges & heore Balies • were;* bratful I-croz/zmet; 45 
Feynedezz hezzz 46 for heore foode ■ fou^ten atte ale ; 47 
In Glotonye, God wot • gon heo to Bedde, 
And ryseth vp wip ribaudye 48 • pis Roberdes knaues; 49 
Sleep and Sleu^pe 50 • suwep hem euere. 51 

Pilgr/mes and Palmers • Plihten hem to-ged^res 52 
For to seche seint Ieme 53 • and seintes at Roome ; 
Wenten forp in heore wey 54 • with mony wyse tales, 
And hedden leue to ly^en 55 • al heore lyf aftir. 

Ermytes on an hep 56 • wip hokide staues, 57 
Wenten to Walsyngham • & here wenchis aftir ; 58 
Grete lobres & longe 59 • ]>at lop weore to swynke, 
Clopeden hem in Copes • to beo knowen for brep^en ; 60 
And summe schopen hem 61 to hermytes • heore ese to haue. 62 

I Font ]>ere Freres 63 • all pe Foure Ordres, 64 
Prechinge pe peple • for proiyt of heore wombes, 65 
Glosynge pe Gospel 66 ■ as hem good like]', 67 
For Couetyse of Copes 68 • Construe)? hit ille; 69 
For monye of pis Maistres 70 • mowe/z eloper hem at lyking, 71 
For Moneye & heore Marchauzzdie 72 • meetezz ofte toged^re. 
Seppe charite hap be chapmon 73 and cheef to schriuezz 74 lordes, 
Mony ferlyes han bi-falle 75 • in a fewe ^eres. 
But holychirche bi-ginne • holde bet to-gedere, 
pe moste Mischeef on molde 76 • mountep vp faste. 

per pramede a pardoner 77 • as he a prest were, 
And brou3t vp a Bulle 78 • wit/i Bisschopes seles, 
And seide p#t him-self mihte • a-soylen hem alle 79 
Of Falsnesse of Fastinge • and of vouwes I-broken. 80 
pe lewede Men likede him wel • and leeuep his speche, 81 
And comen vp knelynge • and cusseden 82 his Bulle; 
He bonchede hem with his Breuet 83 • & blered heore ei^en, 84 
And rauhte with his Ragemon 85 • Ringes and Broches. 



I, mild, warm. 2, I put myself into (rough) clothing, as if I were a shep- 
herd. 3, The shepherd's dress resembled a hermit's. 4, the epithet unholy 
seems to express the author's opinion of hermits — of those who roamed about 
instead of staying in their cells. 5, I went forth in the world. 6, Malvern 
Hills. 7, There befell to me a wonder, of fairy origin it seemed to me. 8, 
worn out with wandering. 9, broad. 10, by the side of a stream. 11, leaned. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 415 

12, it sounded so pleasant. 13, then did I dream a marvelous dream. 14, and 
as I looked eastward, on high, toward the sun. 15, I saw a tower on elevated 
ground ; this tower is the abode of truth ; the dungeon in the valley is the abode 
of satan. 16, handsomely built. 17, dark. 18, to behold. 19, the Fairfield is 
the world. 20, put them. 21, played very seldom. 22, ploughing and sowing. 
23, worked very hard to earn. 24, what money these wasters with gluttony 
destroy. 25, countenance. 26, curiously disguised. 27, many put themselves; 
are engaged in. 28, lived very strictly. 29, the bliss of the kingdom of heaven. 
30, that keep in their cells. 31, to wander about. 32, dainty living. 33, to 
please their body. 34, chap fare ; whence the English word cheap ; traffic, 
peddling. 35, so as better to achieve their end. 36, and some are skilled to 
make merriment as minstrels. 37, and get gold with their glee. 38, guiltless, 
I believe. 39, but jesters and jugglers. 40, found out fancies for themselves 
and made fools of themselves, and yet have they wit at their command to work 
if it pleased them. 41, that Paul preacheth of them. 42, the text of Paul alluded 
to is, " Qui non laborat non manducet" (2 Thess. iii, 10) ; but the poet dares 
not quote it, because every speaker of evil against another is a servant of Lucifer. 
43, petitioners. 44, went. 45, with their bags and their bellies crammed full. 
46, played the hypocrite. 47, atte alle = atten ale = at \en ale, at the ale ; over 
their cups ; ale, an ale-house, as in Launce's speech in Two Gentlemen of Ve- 
rona, ii, 5, " go to the ale with a Christian." 48, rise with ribaldry, 49, \ is, 
these. The Robert's men, or Roberdesmen, were lawless vagabonds. In the 
Statutes of 5 Edward III, c. xiv, a class of malefactors, guilty of robbery and 
murder, are called Roberdesmen. 50, sloth. 51, pursue them always. 52, gather 
them together. 53, Seint Ieme, St. James of Compostella in Gallicia. Pilgrim- 
ages to Rome and Compostella were then much in vogue. In England, the 
most famous place of pilgrimage was Walsingham in Norfolk. 54, they went 
forth on their way. 55, and had leave to lie. 56, in a crowd. 57, with hooked 
staffs. 58, followed by their sweethearts. 59, great big lubbers that were loath 
to work. 60, clothed in capes to be known as friars. 61, and some made them- 
selves hermits. 62, so as to have their ease. 63, I found there friars. 64, the 
four orders of friars were the Franciscans, Augustines, Dominicans, and Car- 
melites. See note I page 425. 65, their bellies. 66, commenting on the 
Gospel. 67, just as they liked. 68, covetousness of rich clothing. 69, con- 
strued it their own way. 70, many of these gentlemen. 71, may dress as they 
like. 72, money and their merchandise often go together. 73, chapmon, ped- 
lar. The friars, instead of exercising charity, went about selling indulgences. 
See Chaucer's description of the Frere in his Prologue. 74, confess. 75, many 
wonders have happened. 76, on earth. 77, there preached a pardoner. See 
Chaucer's Prologue. 78, brought forth a bull. Bulls were so called from the 
seals attached, the round official seal of stamped lead attached to the document 
being called bulla from its roundness. 79, might absolve them all. 80, broken 
vows. 81, lewd men believed him, and liked his words. 82, kissed. 83, he 
banged them with his brevet — that is, thrust it in their faces. 84, bleared, 
blinded their eyes — that is, cajoled them. 85, Ragemon, catalogue, list. The 
full expression is Ragman Roll. The Ragman Roll was a document with many 
seals ; here used of the papal bull. 



Sir John Maundeville. 

This author, says Hakluyt, " borne in the Towne of S. Albans, was so well 
given to the study of learning from his childhood, that he seemed to plant a 
good part of his felicitie in the same ; for he supposed that the honour of his 
birth would nothing availe him, except he could render the same more honour- 
able by his knowledge. Having therefore well grounded himselfe in Religion, 
by reading the Scriptures, he applied his Studies to the Art of Physicke, a Pro- 
fession worthy a noble Wit ; but amongst other things, he was ravished with a 



4 l 6 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

mightie desire to see the greater parts of the World, such as Asia and Africa. 
Having therefore provided all things necessary for his journey, he departed from 
his Countrey in the Yeere of Christ 1322 ; and returned home after the space of 
34 Yeeres, and was then knowen to a very fewe. Still he was the chief Traveller 
of his time, having been 33 degrees, 16 minutes, Southern Latitude, and 62 de- 
grees, 10 minutes, Northern. He mentions one, that travail'd round the Globe, 
which he had heard of when he was young : this probably inspired him with an 
early Passion for Travell. He was of a Family that came into England with 
the Conqueror, and was a Man of Substance. He was a conscientious good 
man, as appears from several instances in his Book, particularly where he says 
that the Sultan of Egypt would have married him to a great Prince's Daughter, 
if he would have chang'd his Religion, and that he refus'd. Being arrived again 
in England, and having seene the wickednes of that Age, he gave out this 
Speech : • In our time, said he, it may be spoken more truly then of olde, that 
Vertue is gone, the Church is under foote, the Clergie is in errour, the Devill 
raigneth, and Simonie beareth the sway.' &c. He died at Leege, in the Yeere 
1371, the 17 day of November, being there buried in the Abbie of the Order of 
the Galielmites. On his tombstone are found these Words in French : Vos ki 
paseis sor mi, pour V amour £>eix, proies por mi ; that is ' Ye that pas over me, 
for the love of God, pray for me.' " 

The first copy of his Voiage and Travaile, addressed to King Edward III, 
bore the following inscription, partly in French, partly in Latin : " A trh noble 
Prince Monsieur Edward de Wyndesore, roy de Engleterre et de Fraunce,pa? 
Monsieur John de Maundeville autour suisdit. Principi excellentissime , pre 
cunctis mortalibus precipue venerando, domino Edwardo, divina providentia Fran- 
corum et Anglorum regi serenissimo. Hibemice domino, Aquitanice duci, mare 
ac ejus insulis occidentalibus dominanti, enfamie et ernatui, universorumque amia 
gerentium tutori, ac probitatis et strenuitalis exemplo ; principi quoque invicto, 
mirabilis Alexandri Sequaci, ac universo orbi tremendo ; cum reverentia, non qua 
decet, cum ad talem et tantam reverentiam minus sujfficientes extiterint, sed qua 
paryitas et possibilitas mitientis et offerentis se extendunt, contenta tradantur" 

His work rapidly became popular, and so great was the demand for it that 
of no book, with the exception of the Scriptures, can more manuscripts be found 
of the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries. The mar- 
velous stories in which the work abounds will not be a matter of surprise when 
we consider the enthusiasm of the writer, and the general ignorance of the times 
he lived in. He was ambitious of saying all he could of the places he treats of, 
and therefore has taken monsters out of Pliny, miracles out of legends, and 
strange stories out of old romances, so that what we now look upon as gross 
absurdity, is in fact to be credited to other authors, at that time accounted true. 
Moreover, when he tells the most improbable stories, he generally prefaces 
them with, " thei seyn," or " men seyn, but I have not sene it," and in one place 
he even owns that his book is made partly from hearsay and partly from his own 
knowledge. 

But while the subject of his work, as well as the great popularity it obtained, 
may give us an insight into the historical and geographical notions of the age, 
its main interest, for our present purpose, lies in the language itself, which, 
neither emanating from a monastic establishment nor addressed to any particu- 
lar class of readers, but eminently suited to the subject, is the best specimen we 
possess of the familiar style of English prose five hundred years ago. " ^ec 
schulle undirstonde," says the author in the prologue of his work, " that I have 
put this boke out of Latyn into Frensche, and translated it a^en out of Frensche 
into Englyssche, that every man of my nacioun may undirstonde it." 

The following passage on Paradise is very singular, and a good specimen of 
the author's style : 

Of Paradys ne can not I speken * propurly : for I was not there. 
It is fer be3onde ; 2 and that forthinkethe me : 3 and also I was not 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



417 



worthi. But as I have herd seye 4 of wyse men be3onde, I schalle 
telle 3011 with gode Wille. Paradys terrestre, as wyse men seyn, 
is the higheste place of Erthe, that is in alle the World ; and it is 
so highe, that it touchethe nyghe to the cercle of the Mone, 5 there 
as the Mone makethe hire torn. 6 For sche 7 is so highe, that the 
Flode of Noe 8 ne myght not come to hire, 9 that wolde have cov- 
ered alle the Erthe of the World 10 alle aboute, and aboven and 
benethen, 11 saf 12 Paradys only allone. And this Paradys is en- 
closed alle aboute with a Walle ; and men wyte 13 not wherof it 
is. For the Walles ben 14 covered alle over with Mosse; as it 
semethe. 15 And it semethe not that the Walle is ston of Nature. 16 
And that Walle strecchethe fro 17 the Southe to the Northe ; and 
it hathe not but on entree, 18 that is closed with Fyre brennynge ; 19 
so that no man, that is mortalle ne dar not entren. 20 And in the 
moste highe place of Paradys evene in the myddel place, 21 is a 
Welle that castethe out 22 the 4 Flodes, that rennen 23 be 24 dy verse 
Londes : of the whiche, the first is clept 25 Phison or Ganges, that 
is alle on ; 26 and it rennethe thorghe out Ynde 27 or Emlak : in 
the whiche Ryvere ben manye preciouse Stones, and mochel of 
Lignti Aloes, and mochel gravelle of Gold. And that other 
Ryvere is clept Nelus or Gyson, that gothe be 29 Ethiope, and 
aftre be 30 Egypt. And that other is clept Tigris, that rennethe 
be Assirye 31 and be Armenye the grete. 32 And that other is clept 
Eufrate, 33 that rennethe also be Medee 34 and be Armonye 35 and 
be Persye. 36 And men there be3onde seyn that alle the swete 
Watres of the World aboven and benethen taken hire begynnynge 37 
of the Welle of Paradys ; and out of that Welle, alle Watres comen 
and gon. 38 The firste Ryvere is clept Phison that is to seyne in 
hire langage, Assemblee ; for manye othere Ryveres meten hem 
there, and gon in to that Ryvere. 39 And sum 40 men clepen it 
Ganges ; for a Kyng thar was in Ynde, that highte Gangeres, and 
that it runne thorghe 41 out his Lond. And that Water is in sum 
place clere, 42 and in sum place trouble ; in sum place hoot, 43 and 
in sum place cole. 44 The seconde Ryvere is clept Nelus or Gy- 
son : for it is alle weye 45 trouble, and Gyson, in the langage of 
Ethiope is to seye trouble, and in the langage of Egypt also. The 
thridde 46 Ryvere that is clept Tigris is as moche for to seye 47 as 
faste rennynge ; 48 for he rennethe more faste than any of the 
tother. 49 And also there is a Best 50 that is cleped Tigris, that is 
faste rennynge. The fourthe Ryvere is clept Eufrates, that is to 
seyne, 51 wel berynge; 52 for there growen manye Godes vpon that 
Ryvere, as Cornes, 53 Frutes, and other Godes y nowe plentee. 54 
And 3ee 55 schulle undirstonde, that no man that is mortelle, ne 
may not approchen to that Paradys. For be Londe no man may 
go for wylde bestes, that ben in the Desertes, and for the highe 
Mountaynes and gret 56 huge Roches, that no man may passe by, 
for the derke 57 places that ben there, and that manye : And be 
the Ryveres may no man go ; for the Water rennethe so rudely 



4 i 8 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

and so scharply, because that it comethe doun 58 so outrageously 
from the highe places aboven that it rennethe in so grete Wawes 59 
so that no Schipp may not rowe ne seyle 60 a^enes" it : and the 
Watre rorethe 62 so and makethe so huge noyse, and so gret tem- 
pest, that no man may here other 63 in the Schipp, thoughe he 
cryede with alle craft that he cowde, 64 in the hyeste voys that he 
myghte. Manye grete Lordes hav assayed with gret wille manye 
tymes for to passen be tho Ryveres toward Paradys, with fulle 
grete Companyes, but thei myghte not speden in hire Veage ; 65 
and manye dyeden 66 for werynesse of rowynge a}enst tho stronge 
Wawes ; and manye of hem becamen blynde ; and manye deve, 67 
for the noyse of the Water : and Sume weren perisseht and loste 
with inne the Wawes : so that no mortelle man may approche to 
that place, with outen 68 specyalle grace of God; so that of that 
place I can seye 30U no more. And therfor I schalle holde me 
stille, and retornen 69 to that that I have sene. 70 

I, I can not speak. 2, beyond. 3, I repented. 4, heard say. 5, that it 
nearly touches the circle of the moon. 6, as the moon turns. 7, it. 8, the 
flood of Noah. 9, could not reach it. 10, but covered all the rest of the world. 
11, above and below. 12, safe. 13, know. 14, are. 15, appears. 16, natural 
stone. 17, from. 18, it has but one entrance. 19, burning fire. 20, enter. 
21, iii the middle. 22, out of which issue. 23, run. 24, through. 25, called. 
26, which is all one. 27, through India. 28, much lignttm aloes. 29, goes 
through. 30, afterward through. 31, Assyria. 32, Armenia the greater, 33, 
Euphrates. 34, Media. 35, Armenia. 36, Persia. 37, taken their origin. 38, 
come and go. 39, meet and join it there. 40, some. 41, through. 42, clear. 
43, hot. 44, cool. 45, always. 46, third. 47, as much as to say. 48, swift 
running. 49, any other. 50, beast. 51, to say. 52, well-bearing. 53, corn. 
54, in plenty. 55, ye. 56, great. 57, dark. 58, comes down. 59, waves. 60, 
row nor sail. 61, against. 62, roars. 63, people can not hear each other. 64, 
though he might shout as loud as he could. 65, their journey. 66, died. 67, 
deaf. 68, without. 69, return. 70, seen. 



John de Trevisa. 

In the first half of the fourteenth century Ralph Hygden, a monk of St. 
Werburgh's in Chester, wrote in Latin a universal history, from the creation up 
to his time, which in 1357 he published under the title of Polychronicon. A 
translation of this work, which was long the standard of history and geography 
in England, was completed in 1387 by John de Trevisa, a native of Cornwall, 
residing in Gloucestershire as chaplain to Thomas Lord Berkeley. The follow- 
ing passage from this work, relating to the corruption of the original vernacular 
through Norman influence, has been often quoted, and is especially interesting 
from the additional comments of the translator, in which it is positively stated 
that after the great pestilence of 1349 the new language began to be taught in 
preference to French, of which change he points out the advantage and the dis- 
advantage : 

DE INCOLARUM UNGUIS. 

As hyt ys yknowe hou$ meny maner people bu]? * in ]?is ylond, 
]>er bup also of so meny people longages & tonges ; nopeles Walsch- 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



419 



men & Scottes, \at buf no3t 2 ymelled 3 wif o]>er nacions, holdef 
wel ny} 4 here furste longage & speche, bote^ef 5 Scottes, ]>at were 
som tyme confederat & wonede 6 wif fe Pictes, drawe somwhat 
after here speche. Bote fe Flemmynges, \at wonef in fe west 
syde of Wales, habbef yleft 7 here strange speche & spekef Saxon- 
lych ynow. 8 Also Englysch men, fey} 9 hy hadde fram fe bygyn- 
nyng fre 10 maner speche, Soujwon, Norton, & Myddel speche 
(in fe myddel of fe lond), as hy 11 come of pre maner people of 
G^rmania; nofeles, 12 by cowmyxstion & mellyng 13 furst wif Danes 
& afterward wif Normans, in menye fe contray longage ys apey- 
red, 14 & som vsef strange wlaffyng, 15 chyteryng, 16 harryng 17 & 
garryng, 18 grisbittyng. 19 pis apeyryng of f e burf -tonge ys by- 
cause of twey 21 finges : — on ys, for chyldern in scole, a^enes 22 fe 
vsage and manere of al o\er nacions, buf compelled for to leue 
here 23 oune longage, & for to construe here lessons & here finges 
a Freynsch, & habbef, sufthe 24 fe Normans come furst in-to 
Engelond. Also, gentil men children buf ytau^t 25 for to speke 
Freynsch fram tyme ]>at a buj> yrokked in here cradel, & connef 26 
speke & playe wif a child hys brouch ; and oplondysch men wol 
lykne haw-sylf to gentil men, & fondef 27 wif gret bysynes for to 
speke Freynsch, for to be more ytold 28 of. 

Pys manere was moche y-vsed to-fore f e furste moreyn, 29 & ys 
seethe somdel 30 ychaunged. For Ioh#n Cornwal, a maysrer of 
gramme, chayngede fe lore 31 in granw-scole, & construccion of 
Freynsch in-to Englysch ; & Richard Pencrych lurnede fat manere 
techyng of hym, & 6\>er men of Pencrych; so \at now, fe $er of 
oure Lord a fousond fre hondred foure score & fyue, of fe sec- 
unde kyng Richard after fe conquest nyne, in al fe gram<?r-scoles 
of Engelond childern leuef 32 Frensch & construe]? & lurnef an 
Englysch, and habbef ]>er-by avauntage in on syde & desavaun- 
tage yn ano]>er ; here avauntage ys, \at a lurnef here gram^r yn 
lasse tyme J?an childern wer ywoned 33 to do — disavauntage ys, \at 
now childern of gram^r-scole connef no more Frensch fan can 
here lift heele, 34 & fat ys harm for ham, & a scholle passe fe se 35 
& trauayle in strange londes, & in meny caas also. Also gentil 
men habbef now moche yleft for to teche here childern Frensch. 
Hyt semef a gret wonder hou} Englysch, fat ys fe burf-tonge of 
Englysch men & here oune longage & tonge, ys so dyuers of 
soun 36 in fis ylond ; & fe longage of Normandy ys cowlyng 37 of 
a-nof<?r lond, & haf on maner soun among al men ]>at spekef hyt 
ary3t 38 in Engelond. Nof eles f er ys as meny dyuers man^r Frensch 
yn fe rem 39 of Fraunce as ys dyuers manere Englysch in fe rem 
of Engelond. 

1, are. 2, not. 3, mixed. 4, nigh. 5, except that. 6, dwelled. 7, left 
off. 8, quite ; enough. 9, through. 10, three. II, they. 12, nevertheless. 
13, mingling. 14, impaired. 15, babbling. 16, chattering. 17, growling, 
snarling like a dog. 18, rough talking. 19, gnashing, grinding of teeth. 20, na- 
tive tongue. 21, two. 22, against. 23, their. 24, since. 25, taught. 26, can. 



4 20 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

27, strive. 28, thought. 29, plague. 30, somewhat. 31, method of instruc- 
tion. 32, leave off. 33, accustomed. 34, than can their left heel. 35, if he 
should cross the sea. 36, sound. 37, stranger. 38, aright ; correctly. 



John Wyclif. 

Ever since the Hermits of Hampole, there had been a great stirring of the 
English mind ; many works on religion had been put forth in various parts of 
England, and even the universities commenced lending their sanction to the 
speech of the common folk. In 1384, William of Nassington laid a translation 
into English rhymes before the learned men of Cambridge, which was pro- 
nounced correct and grounded on the best authority. Oxford had been roused 
by the preaching of Wyclif, and she was glowing with a fiery heat unknown to 
her since the days of the earlier Franciscans. The questions in debate had the 
healthiest effect upon the English tongue, and brought out a talent in our au- 
thor himself, which he was far from possessing in his earlier attempts at writing. 
About the year 1383 he published his translation of the Bible, made in the com- 
mon dialect of the native, and there the unrivaled combination of pure simplici- 
ty, dignity, and feeling in the original compel his old English, as they seem to 
do in every other language into which it is translated, to be clear, interesting, and 
energetic. In reading Wyclif s version of the Bible, we are struck by various 
peculiarities of speech in which he differs from his contemporaries, and which 
have left their impress upon the religious dialect of England. The following 
translation of the " Prodigal Son " shows the merit of his style, which compares 
favorably with the best of that time, and reads with peculiar interest in his 
venerable diction : 



THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON. 

St. Luke, Ch. xv, verses 11-32. 

Summan had two sones, & the monger seyde to his fadir / fadir 
}yue to me f e porcioune of substaunce (or catel) fat bifallif me / 
and he departide to hem substaunce / and not aftir manye dayes 
alle fingis gederide to gedir, and fe monger sone wente fer on pil- 
grymage into afer cuntre • & fere wastide his substaunce (or 
goodis) in lyuyng leccherously / and aftir fat he had endide alle 
fingis, a stronge hunger is made in fat cuntre • & he bigan for to 
haue nede / and he wente and cleuede to one of f e burgeysis of 
fat cuntre, and he sente hym into his toune • fat he schulde feede 
hoggis / and he coueytide for to fulfille his wombe of the coddis 
fat f e hoggis eten, and no man $aue to hym / sof ely he turnede 
a$en into hym self, and seyde / how manye hiride men in my fadir 
hous abounden in looues, and I forsof e perische heere in hunger / 
I schal risen vp & go to my fadir, and I schal seye to hym / fadir 
I haue synnede into heuene & bifore fee, and nowe I am not 
worfi for to be clepide fi sone • make me as one of fin hiride 
men / and he risynge came to his fadir / sof ely whanne he was 
3it fer, and his fadir si$e hym • & is styrede by mercy, and he 
rennynge to • felde vpon his necke, and kisside hym / and fe 
sone seyde to hym / fadir I haue synnede into heuene and bifore 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 421 

pee, and nowe I am not wor|>i for to be clepide pi sone / forsope pe 
fadir seyde to his seruauntis / soone brynge }ee forpe pe firste stool 
& clopide hym • & $yue 3ee a rynge on his hande, & schoon into 
feet / and brynge 3ee to • a calue made fatte, and slee }ee & ete 
we & glade we in plenteuouse etynge • for pis my sone is deade 
& ha]? lyuede a$en, he perischide & is founde / and alle men bi- 
gunnen for to ete gladely / forsope his elder sone was in pe feelde / 
and whanne he came & ney3ede to the hous, he herde a symphonye 
& carole (or croude) / and he clepide one of the seruauntis, and 
axide what pes pingis weren / and he seyde to hym pi broper is 
comen • and pi fadir si ewe a fattide calue • for he receyuede hym 
saaf / forsope he was wrope, and wolde not entre / perfore his fadir 
gon oute bigan to preye hym / & he answerynge to his fadir seyde / 
lo so manye ^eeris I serue to pee • and I neuer passide ouer (or 
brake) pi commaundment, & pou neuer haste $ouen to me a kide 
pat I schulde wip my frendes be fulfillide / but aftir pat pis pi sone 
pat hap deuouride his substaunce wip hooris came, pou hast slayne 
to hym a fattide calue / and he seyde to hym / sone pou art euer- 
more wip me, and alle my pingis ben pin / forsope it bihouede for 
to ete plenteuousely & to ioye, for pis pi broper was deade & lyuede 
a^en / he perischide & is founden. 

AUTHORIZED VERSION OF THE SAME PASSAGE. 

1 1 A certain man had two sons : 

12 And the younger of them said to Ms father, Father, give 
me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto 
them his living. 

13 And not many days after the younger son gathered all to- 
gether, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted 
his substance with riotous living. 

14 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine 
in that land ; and he began to be in want. 

15 And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that coun- 
try ; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 

16 And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that 
the swine did eat : and no man gave unto him. 

17 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired 
servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I 
perish with hunger ! 

18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, 
Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, 

19 And am no more worthy to be called thy son : make me as 
one of thy hired servants. 

20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was 
yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and 
ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. 

21 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against 



422 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called 
thy son. 

22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best 
robe, and put it on him ; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes 
on his feet : 

23 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us 
eat, and be merry : 

24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again ; he was lost, 
and is found. And they began to be merry. 

25 Now his elder son was in the field : and as he came and 
drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. 

26 And he called one of the servants, and asked what these 
things meant. 

27 And he said unto him, Thy brother is come ; and thy father 
hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and 
sound. 

28 And he was angry, and would not go in : therefore came 
his father out, and entreated him. 

29 And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years 
do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy command- 
ment ; and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make 
merry with my friends : 

30 But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured 
thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. 

31 And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all 
that I have is thine. 

32 It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad : for 
this thy brother was dead, and is alive again ; and was lost, and 
is found. 



Peres the Ploughman's Crede. 

This poem, consisting of 850 lines, was written in alliterative verse by a 
disciple of Wyclif, whose name has not been ascertained. The title and form 
of it are both imitated from William Langland's more famous poem, known as 
" The Vision of William concerning Piers the Ploughman." Though these two 
poems, the "Crede" and the "Vision" are, in fact, by different authors, and ex- 
press different sentiments on some points, they are continually being confounded 
with each other. There is every reason to believe that the anonymous author 
of the " Crede " was also author of " The Ploughman's Tale," a satirical poem 
which has often been wrongly ascribed to Chaucer. 

The dialect is of a Midland character, and less full of unusual words than 
most of the poems in the same metre. The poem may have been written in the 
neighborhood of London, about A. d. 1394. 

DESCRIPTION OF A DOMINICAN CONVENT. 

panne pou^t y to frayne ]>e first • of }>is foure ordirs, 1 
And presede 3 to ]>e prechoures 3 • to proven here wille. 4 
Ich hr$ede 5 to her house ■ to herken of more ; 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 423 

And whan y cam to pat court • y gaped 6 aboute. 

Swich a bild bold, 7 y-buld • opon erpe hei$te 8 

Say i nou$t in certeine 9 • sippe 10 a longe tyme. 

Y 3emede u vpon pat house • & ^erne 12 peron loked, 

\Vh0u3 pe pileres weren y-peynt 13 • and pulched ful clene, 14 

And queynteli i-corven 15 • wip curiouse knottes, 16 

Wip wyndowes well y-wrou^t • wide vp o-lofte. 17 

And panne y entrid in • and even-forp 18 went, 

And all was walled pat wone 19 • pou3 it wid were, 

Wip posternes in pryuytie 20 • to pasen when hem liste ; 21 

Orche^ardes and erberes 22 • euesed well clene, 23 

& a curious cros • craftly entayled, 24 

Wip tabernacles y-ti^t 25 • to toten all abouten. 26 

pe pris of a plou^-lond • of penyes so rounde 

To aparaile pat pyler • were pure lytel. 37 

panne y munte me forp 28 ■ pe mynstre to knowen, 

And a-waytede a woon 29 • wonderlie well y-beld, 

Wip arches on eueriche half • & belliche y-corven, 30 

Wip crochetes on corners • wip knottes 31 of golde, 

Wyde wyndowes y-wrou3t • y-written full pikke, 32 

Schynen wip schapen scheldes 33 • to schewen aboute, 

Wip merkes of marchauntes 34 • y-medled bytwene, 

Mo pan twenty and two • twyes y-no^mbred. 

per is none heraud pat hap • half swich a rolle, 

Ri}t as a rageman 35 • hap rekned hem newe. 

Tombes opon tabernacles • tyld opon lofte, 36 

Housed in hirnes 37 • harde set a-bouten, 

Of armede alabaustre • clad for pe nones, 38 

[Made vpon marbel • in many maner wyse, 

Knyghtes in her conisanter 39 • clad for pe nones,] 

All it seemed seyntes : y-sacred opon erpe ; 

And louely ladies y-wrou^t • leyen by her sydes 

In many gay garments • pat weren gold-beten. 40 

pou^ pe tax of ten $er • were trewly y-gadered, 41 

Nolde it nou3t maken pat hous ^ • half, as y trowe. 

panne kam I to p#t cloister • & gaped abouten 

Whou3 it was pilered and peynt • & portred well clene, 43 

All y-hyled wip leed 44 • lowe to pe stones, 

And y-paued wip peynt til 45 • iche poynte after oper; 

Wip kundites 46 of clene tyn • closed all aboute, 

Wip lauoures of latun 47 • louelyche y-greithed. 48 

I trowe pe gaynage of pe ground • in a gret schire 

Nolde aparaile pat place • 00 poynt til other ende. 49 

panne was pe chaptire-hous wrou3t • as a greet chirche, 

Coruen and couered • and queyntliche entayled ; 50 

Wip semlich selure 51 • y-set on lofte ; 

As a Parlement-hous • y-peynted aboute. 

panne ferd y into fraytour 53 • and fond pert an oper, 



424 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

An halle for an hey} kinge • an housholde to holden, 

WiJ> brode bordes aboute • y-benched wel clene, 

Wij> windowes of glas • wrou3t as a Chirche. 

panne walkede y ferrer 53 • & went all abouten, 

And sei} M halles full hy^e 55 • & houses full noble, 

Chambers wi)> chymneyes • & Chapells gaie ; 

And kychens for an hy^e kinge • in castells to holden, 

And her dortour y-di^te • wi)> dores ful stronge ; 56 

Fermery 57 and f raitur • with f ele mo 58 houses, 

And all strong ston wall • sterne opon heipe, 

Wi)> gaie garites 59 & grete - & iche hole y-glased ; 

& ojwe houses y-nowe • to herberwe )>e queene. 60 

& }et pise bilderes wilne beggen 61 • a bagg-ful of wheate 

Of a pure pore man • ]>at maie onepe 63 paie 

Half his rente in a $er • and half ben behynde ! 

panne turned y a$en • whan y hadde all y-toted, 

And fond in a freitour • a frere on a benche, 

A greet cherl & a grym 63 • growen as a tonne, 64 

WiJ? a face as fat • as a full bledder, 

Blowen bretfull of bre|> • & as a bagge honged 

On bopen his chekes, & his chyn • wij? a chol lollede, 

As greet as a gos eye • growen all of grece ; 

part all wagged his fleche • as a quyk myre. 65 

His cope ]>at biclypped him 66 • wel clene was it folden, 

Of double vvorstede y-dy$t 67 • doun to ]>e hele ; 68 

His kyrtel of clene whijt • clenlyche y-sewed ; 

Hyt was good y-now of ground • greyn for to beren. 69 

I haylsede \a\. herdeman 70 • & hendliche 71 y saide, 

1 Gode syre, for godes loue • canstou me grai)>e tellen 72 

To any worpely wij$t 73 • ]>at wissen me coupe 74 

Whou y schulde conne 75 my crede • Crist for to folowe, 

pat leuede lelliche 76 him-self • & lyuede Jwafter, 77 

p#t feynede non falshede • but fully Crist suwede ? 78 

For sich a certeyn man • syker wold y trosten, 79 

P#t he wolde telle me pe trewpe • and turne to none oper. 

And an Austyn 80 )?is ender daie 81 • egged me faste ; 88 

ptft he wold techen me wel • he ply^t me his treupe, 83 

And seyde me, " serteyne • sypen Crist died 

Oure ordir was euelles 84 • & erst y-founde." ,85 

' Fyrst, felawe ! * qua)? he 86 • ' fy on his pilche ! 8? 
He is but abortijf • eked wip cloutes ! 88 
He holdep his ordynaunce • wife hores and peues, 89 
And purchase)? hem pryuileges • wip penyes so rounde ; 
It is a pur pardoners craft • proue & asaye ! 90 
For haue pei )>i money • a monep grafter, 
Certes, pei} pou come a^en 91 • he nyl 92 pe nou$t knowen. 
But, felawe, our foundement - was first of pe opere, 
& we ben founded f ulliche • wip-outen f ayntise ; 93 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 425 

& we ben clerkes y-cnowen • cunnynge in scole, 94 

Proued in procession • by processe of lawe. 

Of oure ordre \er be]? • bichopes wel manye, 

Seyntes on sundry stedes 95 • pat suffreden harde ; 

& we ben proued )?e prijs • of popes at Rome, 96 

& of gretest degre • as godspelles telle]?.' 

* A ! syre,' qua]? y ]?anne • ' ]?ou seyst a gret wonder, 

Si]?en crist seyd hym-self • to all his disciples. 

" W/foch of 30U \a\. is most • most schal he werche, 97 

& who is goer byforne • first schal he semen." 

& seyde, "he sawe satan • sytten full hey^e 98 

& ful lowe ben y-leyd ; 99 • in lyknes he tolde, 100 

P#t in pouernesse 101 of spyrit • is spedfullest hele, 102 

And hertes of heynesse • harme]? ]?e soule. 

And ]?<?rfore, frere, fare well • here fynde y but pride ; 

Y preise nou^t ]?i preching • but as a pure myte.' 

1, the four orders here referred to are: 

(1) The Minorites, Franciscans, or Gray Friars, called in France Cordeliers. 
Called Franciscans from their founder, St. Francis of Assisi ; Minorites (in Italian 
Fratri Minori, in French Freres Mineurs), as being, as he said, the humblest of 
the religious foundations ; Gray Friars, from the color of their habit ; and Cor- 
deliers, from the hempen cord with which they were girded. For further details, 
see Monumenta Franciscana, which tells us that they were fond of physical 
studies, made much use of Aristotle, preached pithy sermons, exalted the Virgin, 
encouraged marriages, and were the most popular of the orders, but at last de- 
generated into a compound of the pedlar or huckster with the mountebank or 
quack doctor. They arrived in England in A. D. 1224. Friar Bacon was a 
Franciscan. 

(2) The Dominicans, Black Friars, Friars Preachers, or Jacobins. Founded 
by St. Dominick, of Castile ; order confirmed by Pope Honorius in A. D. 1216 ; 
arrived in England about 122T. Habit, a white woolen gown, with white gir- 
dle ; over this, a white scapular ; over these, a black cloak with a hood, whence 
their name. They were noted for their fondness for preaching, their great 
knowledge of scholastic theology, their excessive pride, and the splendor of their 
buildings. The Black Monks were the Benedictines. 

(3) The Augustine or Austin Friars, so named from St. Augustine of Hippo. 
They were clothed in black, with a leathern girdle. They were first congregated 
into one body by Pope Alexander IV, under one Lanfranc, in 1256. They are 
distinct from the Augustine Canons. 

(4) The Carmelites, or White Friars, whose dress was white, over a dark- 
brown tunic. They pretended that their order was of the highest antiquity and 
derived from Helias, i. e., the prophet Elijah ; that a succession of anchorites 
had lived in Mount Carmel from his time till the thirteenth century ; and that 
the Virgin was the special protectress of their order. Hence they were some- 
times called " Mary's men." 

As the priority of the foundation of these orders is discussed in the poem, 
it will be well to notice that the dates of their first institution are, Augustines, 
1150; Carmelites, 1160; Dominicans, 1206; Franciscans, 1209. 

2, pressed forward ; hurried. 3, The Preachers, that is, the Dominican 
friars. 4, to test their good will. 5, hastened. 6, stared. 7, such a stately 
building. 8, erected on high ground. 9, for sure I never saw. 10, since. II, 
I gazed. 12, closely ; diligently. 13, how the pillars were painted. 14, neatly 
polished. 15, carved. 16, round bunches of leaves ; referring to the capitals of 

29 



426 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



the pillars. 17, well shaped, wide and high. 18, straightway ; directly onward. 
19, dwelling. 20, private back-doors. 21, to go out when they pleased. 22, 
orchards and vegetable gardens. 23, neatly bordered. 24, cut ; carved ; sculpt- 
ured. 25, solidly-built cells. 26, to spy everything around. A tote-hill is a 
hill to spy from, now shortened to Tothill. 27, the price of a large farm would 
not raise such another building. 28, then I went forth. 29, and beheld a dwell- 
ing. 30, with arches on every side, beautifully sculptured. 31, projecting leaves, 
flowers, etc., such as are used in Gothic architecture to decorate the angles of 
spires, canopies, etc. 32, inscribed with many texts or names. 33, coats of 
arms of benefactors painted on the glass windows. 34, Merkes of marchauntes, 
" their symbols, cyphers, or badges, drawn or painted in the windows. . . . 
Mixed with the arms of their founders and benefactors stand also the marks of 
tradesmen and merchants, who had no arms, but used their marks in a shield 
like arms. Instances of this sort are very common." 35, alluding to the Rag- 
man Rolls, originally " a collection of those deeds by which the nobility and 
gentry of Scotland were tyrannically constrained to subscribe allegiance to Ed- 
ward I of England, in 1296, and which were more particularly recorded in four 
large rolls of parchment, consisting of thirty-five pieces, bound together, and 
kept in the Tower of London." — Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary. See also Hal- 
liwell's Dictionary, where it is explained that several kinds of written rolls, espe- 
cially those to which many seals were attached, were known by the name of 
Ragman or Ragman-roll. In the Prologue to Piers the Ploughman, p. 414, the 
name is given to a papal bull. The modern rigmarole is a curious corruption 
of this term. 36, Tyld opon lofte, set up on high. It means that the tombs 
were raised some three or four feet above the ground. 37, housed in hirnes, in- 
closed in corners or niches. 38, for the occasion. 39, surcoats of arms. 40, 
adorned with beaten gold. 41, if the tax of ten years were honestly collected. 
42, it would not build that house. 43, neatly decorated. 44, all covered with 
lead. 45, paved with painted tiles. 46, conduits. 47, lavoirs of latoun, a 
mixed metal much resembling brass. 48, graveled. 49, I trow the produce 
of the land in a great shire would not furnish that place from one end to the 
other. 50, the chapter-house was magnificently constructed in the style of 
church architecture, finely vaulted, and richly carved. 51, beautifully decorated 
ceiling. 52, I went into the refectory. 53, farther. 54, saw. 55, very high. 
56, a dormitory closed with heavy doors. 57, infirmary. 58, many more. 59, 
garrets. 60, houses enough to lodge a queen. 61, will beg. 62, with difficulty. 
63, a stout, grim-looking fellow. 64, shaped like a barrel. 65, with a face as 
fat as a full bladder that is blown quite full of breath ; and it hung like a bag 
on both his cheeks, and his chin lolled (or flapped) about with a jowl (or double 
chin) that was as great as a goose's egg, grown all of fat ; so that all his flesh 
wagged about like a quick mire (quagmire). 66, enveloped him. 67, made of 
double worsted. 68, down to his heels. 69, The kirtle was the under-garment, 
which was worn white by the Black Friars. The outer black garment is here 
called the cope, and was made, very comfortably, of double worsted, reaching 
down to his heels. The kirtle was of clean white, cleanly sewed, and was good 
enough in its ground or texture to admit of its being dyed in grain, i. e., of a 
fast color. 70, I saluted that pastor. 71, politely. 72, can you direct me. 
73, worthy person. 74, that could teach me. 75, know. 76, that truly be- 
lieved. 77, and lived accordingly. 78, follows. 79, I would surely trust. 80, 
an Augustine friar. 81, the other day. 82, urged me strongly. 83, plighted 
me his troth. 84, evil-less ; without stain. 85, founded first. 86, said he. 87, 
fur garment. 88, tattered rags. 89, harlots and thieves. 90, it is merely a 
pardoner's trick, rest and try it. 91, though you come again. 92, will not. 93, 
pretence. 94, an allusion to the reputation of the Dominicans for scholastic 
learning. 95, places. 96, " Three popes, John XXI, Innocent V, and Bene- 
dict XI, were all taken from the order of Black Friars, between A. D. 1276- 
1303." 97, work ; labor. 98, he saw satan sit very high. 99, laid very low. 
100, by way of parable. 101, poverty. 102, most helpful salvation. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



Thomas Wymbilton. 



427 



In 1388 we have another indication of the style of the metropolis in the 
sermons preached at St. Paul's Cross by " maister Thomas Wymbilton." They 
prove that the old dialects were then out of use in large towns, and that the 
present English was substantially formed. Being addressed to a London audi- 
ence, they may be presumed, by making allowance for the more solemn style of 
the pulpit, to come very near the usual diction of those for whom they were in- 
tended. At all events they show the increased cultivation which the old Eng- 
lish was receiving. The following extract is quite interesting for the naive 
manner in which it establishes the relationship between the nobility, the clergy, 
and the people : 

For right as }ee 1 seen, 2 fat in tiliyng 3 of f e material vyne f er 
ben 4 diverse labouris ; for summe 5 kutte awey the voide braunchis ; 
summe maken forkis and railis to bere up the vynes ; and summe 
diggen awey f e olde eerf e from f e roote and leven 6 fere fatter. 7 
And alle f ese officers 8 ben so necessary to f e vyne, fat }if ony of 
them faile, it shal harme gretly or destroye fe vyne. But 9 f e vyne 
be kut, it shal wexe wilde. But $if she be railed, she shal be over- 
goo 10 wif nettes and weedis. But fe roote be fattid wi}> dunge, 
she for feebilnesse shulde wexe bareyne. 

Rightsoo in f e chirche been needful f ese fire officers, preesf od, 
knyghfod, and laboureris. To prestis it fallef to kutte awey f e 
voide braunches of synnes, wip fe swerd 11 of her 12 tunge. To 
knyghtis it f allef to lette no wrongis and f eftis to be doo ; 13 and 
to mayntene Goddis lawe and hem 14 fat ben teachers f er of, and 
also to kepe fe londe fro enemyes of oofere londes. And to 
laboureris it f allef to travaile 15 bodily, and wif her soor swet gete 
out of f e eerf e fe bodily luflode, 16 for hem and for oofere parties. 
And fese statis ben also needful to fe chirche fat noon may wel 
be wif outen oofere. For 3if preshod lackide, f e peepil for defaute 
of knowyng Goddis lawe schulden wexe wilde on vices and dye 
goostli. And $if knyghthod lackide to rule fe peepil bi lawe and 
hardnesse, f eves and enemyes schulden so encrease fat no man 
schulde lyve in pees. And 3if f e laboureris weren not, bop preestis 
and knyghtis mosten 17 ben acremen 18 and herdis, 19 and ellis 20 fey 
schulden for defaute of bodily sustenaunce dye. 



I, you. 2, see. 3, cutting. 4, are. 5, some. 6, leave. 7, manure. 8, 

operations. 9, unless. 10, overgrown. II, sword. 12, their. 13, done. 14, 

them. 15, work. 16, livelihood. 17, must. 18, peasants. 19, herdsmen. 
20, else. 



English and Latin Lines Mixed. 

The following mixture of English and Latin rhymes is similar to what we 
have seen in chapter viii in English and French of the same period : 



" Joyne all now in thys feste 
ffor Verbum caro factum est. 



428 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

tl Jhesus almyghty king of blys 
assumpsit carnem Virginis. 
He was ev' and ev'more ys 
consors p'rni lumis. 

" All holy churche of hym mak mynd 
intravit ventris thalamum ; 
ffrom heven to erthe to save mankynd 
pater misit filium. 

" To Mary came a messanger, 
fferens saVm homini ; 
and she answered w* myld chere, 
ecce ancilla Domini. 

" The myght of the holy goste 
palacium intrans uteri j 
of all thyng mekenesse is most 
in conspectu Altissimi. 

" When he was borne that made all thyng 
pastor creator oium ; 
angellis then began to syng 
veni redemptor gentium. 

" Thre kynges come the xii day 
stelld nitente previd ; 
to seke the kyng they toke the way 
bajulantes munera. 

" A sterre furth ledde the kynges all 
inquire?ites Dominum j 
lygging in an ox stall 
invenerunt puerum. 

" For he was kyng of kyngis ay 
primus rex auru optulit ; 
ffor he was God and Lord verray 
secundus rex thus protulit, 

" ffor he was man ; the thyrd kyng 
incensum pulcrum iradidii : 
He us all to hys blys brynge 
qui mori cruce voluit." 



MS. Harleian, No. 275. 



John Gower. 



We now approach the men who first gave English poetry permanent 
beauty and form. The authors hitherto noticed were but the heralds who an- 
nounced the possibility of better things, and excited the taste for their attain- 
ment. Gower and Chaucer were contemporaries, and notice each other in their 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 429 

works with affectionate commendation. But Gower was born before Chaucer, 
and also survived him (he died in 1402). The poem which has ranked him 
among the fathers of English poetry is his " Confessio A mantis," though it has 
been more criticized than read. It seems to have been judged from its title, 
and by the form in which it has been arranged, rather than by its actual con- 
tents. But it must be borne in mind that he lived at the period in which the 
refined spirit of chivalric gallantry had attained its highest polish. Love was, 
in the estimation of the age, the perfection of human excellence and the worthi- 
est object of human life. Gower felt with his age, but tried to incorporate into 
that feeling every virtue and knowledge, and to free it from every vice. It is 
certain that the apostrophe of Chaucer, " O moral Gower," breathes a volume of 
praise which language can scarcely exalt, and which few poets have deserved. 
Gower was highly popular in his own days, and celebrated long afterward, till 
the widely diffused cultivation of English literature diminished his intrinsic 
value, and multiplied his rivals. The following lines are extracted from the 
work referred to above : 

What thynge she byt 1 me don, 2 I do, 

and where she byt me gon, 3 I go, 

and whan hir list 4 to clepe, 5 I come. 

I serve, I bowe, I loke, I lowte, 6 

myn ere foloweth hir aboute ; 

what so she wolle, 7 so woll I, 

whan she woll sit, I knele by, 

and whan she stont, 8 than woll I stonde, 

and whan she taketh hir werke 9 on honde 10 

of weving n or of embroudrie, 

than can I not but muse 12 and prie 

upon hir fingers longe and smale. . . . 

etc. Gower's Confess., iv, p. 103. 



I, prays. 2, to do. 3, to go. 4, pleasure. 5, to call. 6, loiter. 7, will. 
8, stands. 9, work. 10, hand. 11, weaving. 12,. gaze. 



Jeffrey Chaucer. 

The most illustrious ornament of the reign of Edward III, and his suc- 
cessor Richard II, was Jeffrey Chaucer, a poet with whom the history of Eng- 
lish poetry is by many supposed to have commenced, and who has been pro- 
nounced to be the first English versifier who wrote poetically. The precise date 
of his birth is unknown, but, from circumstances alluded to in his works, may 
be placed at 1340. His knowledge, as well as his natural gaiety of disposition, 
soon recommended him to the patronage of a magnificent monarch, and ren- 
dered him a very popular and acceptable character at his brilliant court. In the 
mean time he added to his accomplishments by frequent tours into France and 
Italy, which he sometimes visited with the advantages of a public character. 
Hitherto the English poets had been persons of a private and circumscribed edu- 
cation, and the art of versifying, like every other kind of composition, had been 
confined to recluse scholars, but Chaucer was a man of the world, and from this 
circumstance we are to account in a great measure for the many new embellish- 
ments which he conferred upon the language and poetry. Familiarity with a 
variety of things and objects, opportunities of acquiring the fashionable and 
courtly modes of speech, connections with the great at home, and a personal ac- 



430 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



quaintance with the illustrious poets of foreign countries, opened his mind and 
furnished him with new lights. He was held in the highest estimation by his 
contemporaries. John the Chaplain calls him " Flour of rhetoryk." Occleve 
laments him as a dear master and father, and styles him " the honour of English 
tongue ; floure of eloquence ; mirrour of fructuous entendement ; universal fader 
of science." Lydgate, speaking of him says, " my master," and calls him " chiefe 
poet of Britaine, the loadsterre of our language, the notable Rhetore," etc. His 
writings are very numerous, but his most famous and best known work is the 
" Canterbury Tales," which is dated about 1390, though it was never finished. 
These tales are twenty-four in number, with short introductions to each, called 
prologues, in addition to which there is a General Prologue in which the nar- 
rators of the tales are severally described, often in a style almost unmatched for 
its brilliancy and truthfulness. 

Chaucer was a native of London, and his dialect is the East Midland of the 
second half of the fourteenth century mixed with some Kentish and East Saxon 
elements. At that time the language had absorbed a vast number of French 
words and phrases, and retained many Dutch forms which constantly appear in 
the works of this author, and seem to have been current especially in the South- 
east of the Island. Such are : 



OLD ENGLISH. 


DUTCH. 


MODERN ENGLISH. 


eten and drynken 


eten en drinken 


to eat and drink 


freten 


vreten 


to devour 


kerven 


kerven 


to carve 


sterven 


sterven 


to starve 


weten 


weten 


to know 


meten 


meten 


to measure 


gaderen 


gaderen 


to gather 


geven 
nemen 


geven 
nemen 


to give 
to take 


lenen 


leenen 


to lend 


tellen 


tellen 


to count 


rekenen 


rekenen 


to account 


shryven 
leren 


schryven 
leeren 


to write ; to confess 
to learn 


delen 


deelen 


to deal 


laten 


laten 


to let 


leggen 


leggen 


to lay 


seggen 


zeggen 


to say 


menen 


meenen 


to mean 


stelen 


stelen 


to steal 


smeren 


smeren 


to grease 


schenken 


schenken 


to pour out 


smyten 
werken 


smyten 
werken 


to smite 
to work 


werpen 
wreken 


werpen 
wreken 


to throw 
to avenge 


gaan, gan 
doon 


gaan 
doen 


to go 
to do 


halen 


halen 


to haul 


wit 


wit 


white 


swart 


zwart 


black 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



43* 



OLD ENGLISH. 


DUTCH. 


MODERN ENGLISH. 


hals 


hals 


neck 


bek 


bek 


beak 


crul 


krul 


curl 


vel 


vel 


skin 


men 


men 


some one 


sone 


zoon 


son 


doghter 


dochter 


daughter 


fader, vader 


vader 


father 


leeve mooder 


lieve moeder 


dear mother 


alderliefst 


allerliefst 


dearest of all 


alderbest 


allerbest 


best of all 


overal 


overal 


everywhere 


wereld 


wereld 


world 


woning 


woning 


dwelling 


staat 


staat 


state 


prelaat 


prelaat 


prelate 


engel 


engel 


angel 


ei, eieren 


ei, eieren 


e gg> e gg s 


hyt, hit 


het 


it 


fyn 


fyn 


fine 


wyn 


wyn 


wine 


prys 


prys 


price 


wys 


wys 


wise 


wyf 


wyf 


wife 


lyf 


lyf 


life 


styf 


styf 


stiff 


rym 


rym 


rhyme 


Latyn 


Latyn 


Latin 


grys 


grys 


gray 


Parys 


Parys 


Paris 


reysen 


reisen 


to travel 


dryven 


dryven 


to drive 


ryden 


ryden 


to ride 


spore 


spoor 


spur 


somer 


zomer 


summer 


drogte 


droogte 


draught 


thonder 


donder 


thunder 


dronken 


dronken 


drunk 


yorig 


Jong 


young 


hondred 


honderd 


hundred 



and a vast number of other familiar words which Dutch and English have in 
common, and in which the author invariably follows the Dutch mode of spelling 
which seems to indicate a very similar mode of pronunciation still existing in 
both England and Holland. % 

In words of French origin the terminal ier, tire he always writes er, ere with 
the stress on er, as carpenter, taverner, tapicer, bacheler, manere, mestere, etc. 
The terminal French eur and Latin or he makes our, as errour, honour, emperour; 
and on, om, oun and oum, as pardoun, capoun, heroun,poysoun, prysoun, persoun, 



432 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

champioun, eleccioun, opynyoun, mencioun, noumbre, etc. In the same way he 
writes aun for an and aum for am, as Fraunce, Romaunce, aqueyntaunce, chaunge, 
marckaunt, repentaunt, chaumbre, etc. See pages 339-342. 

The following extracts from the Prologue of the Canterbury Tales are good 
specimens of the author's style, his language and his wit : 

Ther was also a nonne, a Prioresse, 
that of hir smylyng was ful symple and coy ; 
hire gretteste ooth ne was but by Seint Loy ; 
and she was cleped 1 madame Eglentyne. 
Ful weel she soong the service dyvyne, 
entuned in hir nose ful semely. 
And Frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly, 2 
after the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, 
for Frenssh of Parys was to hire unknowe. 
At mete wel ytaught was she with alle : 
she leet no morsel from hir lippes falle, 
ne wette hir fyngres in hir sauce depe ; 
wel koude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe, 
that no drope ne fille upon hire brest. 
In curteisie was set ful muche hir lest : 3 
hire overlippe wyped she so clene 
that in hir coppe was no ferthyng 4 sene 
of grece, whan she dronken hadde hir draughte ; 
ful semely after hir mete she raughte ; 5 
and sikerly she was of greet desport, 
and ful plesaunt, and amyable of port ; 
and peyned hire to countrefete 6 cheere 
of court, and been estatlich 7 of manere, 
and to ben holden digne of reuerence. 
But for to speken of hire conscience, 
she was so charitable and so pitous, 
she wolde wepe, if that she saugh a mous 
kaught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde. 
Of smale houndes hadde she that she fedde 
with rosted flessh, and milk, and wastel 8 breed ; 
but soore she wepte, if oon of hem were deed, 
or if men smoot it with a yerde smerte ; 
and al was conscience and tendre herte. 
Ful semely hir wympel 9 pynched was; 
hire nose tretys, 10 hir yen greye as glas ; 
hir mouth ful smal, and therto softe and reed. 
But sikerly she hadde a fair forheed ; 
it was almoost a spanne brood, I trowe, 
for hardily she was nat undergrowe. 
Ful fetys was hir cloke, as I was war. 
Of smal coral aboute hire arm she bar 
a peire of bedes, gauded n al with grene ; 
and theron heng a brooch of gold ful sheene, 18 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 433 

on which ther was first write a crowned a, 
and after, Amor vincit omnia. 
Another nonne with hire hadde she, 
that was hire chapeleyne, and preestes thre. 

I, called. 2, neatly, elegantly. 3, lust, pleasure. 4, speck. 5, retched, 
belched. 6, imitate. 7, stately. 8, fine bread. 9, white neckcloth. 10, well 
shaped. 11, adorned. 12, bright, beautiful. 

A Frankeleyn 1 was in his compaignye ; 
whit 2 was his heed as is a dayes-ye ; 3 
of his complexioun he was sangwyn. 
Wei loved he by the morwe a sop in wyn ; 
to lyven in delit was evere his wone, 
for he was Epicurus owene sone, 
that heeld opinioun that pleyn delit 
was verrayly felicitee parfit. 
An housholdere, and that a greet was he ; 
seint Julian 4 was he in his contree. 
His breed, his ale was alweys after oon ; 
a bettre envyned 5 man was nowher noon ; 
withoute bake mete was nevere his hous, 
of fissh and flessh, and that so plentevous, 
it snewed in his hous of mete and drynke. 
Of alle deyntees that men koude thynke, 
af'ter the sondry sesouns of the yeer 
he chaunged him his mete and his soper. 
Ful many a fat partrich hadde he in muwe, 
and many a breem, and many a luce 6 in stuwe. 
Wo was his coke, but if his sauce were 
poynaunt, 7 and sharp, and redy al his geere. 
His table dormaunt in his halle alway 
stood redy covered al the longe day. 
At sessiouns ther was he lord and sire ; 
ful ofte-tyme he was knyght of the shire. 
An anlaas, 8 and a gipser 9 al of silk 
Heeng at his girdel, whit as morne milk. 
A shirreve 10 hadde he been and a countour ; u 
Was nowher such a worthy vavasour. 12 

1 Fortescue, De Legibus Anglicz, c. 29, describes " a franklein " as pater 
familias — magnis dilatus possessionitus. And his translator continues : " The 
country is so rilled and replenished with landed menne, that therein so small a 
thorpe can not be found wherein dwelleth not a knight or an esquire, or such a 
householder as is there commonly called a ' franklein,' enriched with great pos- 
sessions, and also other freeholders and many yeomen, able for their livelyhood 
to make a jury in form aforementioned." 2, white. 3, daisy. 4, St. Julian was 
the patron of hospitality. 5, stored, provided with wine. 6, pike. 7, strong- 
flavored, piquant. 8, dagger. 9, pouch, io, sheriff. 11, controller, auditor. 
12, squire, country gentleman. 



434 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



In addition to the many words which modern English, Dutch, and Anglo- 
Saxon have in common, there are some, now obsolete or much altered in form, 
that are met with here and there in ancient English manuscripts, where we find 
them variously modified according to the phonetic notions of authors and copy- 
ists, but in general assuming an orthography resembling the Dutch more than the 
Anglo-Saxon. As from the meter and the rhyming syllables of Early English 
poetry it appears that both sound and accent were very much the same in Eng- 
lish and in Dutch, a knowledge of the pronunciation of vowels in the latter 
tongue will greatly assist us in understanding the forms which mark the transi- 
tion from Anglo-Saxon to Modern English. A glance at the following table 
will be sufficient to show that the difference between corresponding words is far 
more a difference of spelling than of utterance : 

DUTCH HAS THE VALUE OF THE ENGLISH 

a, articulated by a following consonant, a in man 



a, 



t\ 

ie, 

ei, 



not so articulated, and aa y a 

in the prefixes be and ge, and final e, e 
articulated by a following consonant, e 
not so articulated, and ee y a 

articulated by a following consonant, i 
articulated or not, ee 

articulated or not, ie 

articulated by a following consonant, o 
not so articulated, and oo 9 o 



oe, articulated or not, 
ou, articulated or not, 



oo 
ou 

u y articulated by a following consonant, u 

u y not so articulated = French u. 

ui has no equivalent in English. 

y y articulated or not, i 



father 

battery 

met 

cable 

pin 

bee 

lie 

lot 

more 

room 

house 

us 



like 



This will be further illustrated by the following glossary ; and by pronounc- 
ing the Dutch words as indicated, we shall probably very nearly give the true 
sound to the corresponding Anglo-Saxon words as they were pronounced in the 
days of Alfred : 



ANGLO-SAXON. 


DUTCH. 


MODERN ENGLISH, 


secer 


akker 


tilled land 


addre 


ader 


vein 


adel 


adel 


nobility 


ban 


been 


bone 


bat 


boot 


boat 


bedstede 


bedstede 


bedstead 


besom 


bezem 


broom 


betera ; betst 


beter j best 


better ; best 


bil 


byl 


ax 


blaec 


bleek 


bleak 


bted 


blad 


leaf 


blom 


bloem 


bloom 


broc 


broek 


breeches 


canne 


kan 


can 


cetel 


ketel 


kettle 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



435 



ANGLO-SAXON. 


DUTCH. 


MODERN ENGLISH. 


cicen 


kieken 


chicken 


cin 


kin 


chin 


cneo 


knie 


knee 


crume 


kruim 


crumb 


cii 


koe 


cow- 


cus 


kus 


kiss 


daed 


daad 


deed 


daeg 


dag 


day- 


deop 


diep 


deep 


deor 


dier 


animal 


dohtor 


dochter 


daughter 


dom 


doem 


doom 


dol 


dol 


dull 


don 


doen 


to do 


dwaes 


dwaas 


foolish 


dwerg 


dwerg 


dwarf 


earm 


arm 


arm 


et>el 


edel 


noble 


erst 


eerst 


first 


esol 


ezel 


ass 


fine 


vink 


finch 


flaesc 


vleesch 


flesh 


flod 


' vloed 


flood 


folc 


volk 


folk 


fat 


voet 


foot 


gast 


gast 


guest 


geat 


gat 


hole ; opening 


gebed 


gebed 


prayer 


gebod 


gebod 


commandment 


gebrec 


gebrek 


want 


gebdr \ 


buur 
boer 


neighbor 
boor; peasant 


genog 


genoeg 


enough 


gesam 


gezaatn 


together 


geweald 


geweld 


violence 


geolu 


geel 


yellow 


glaes 


glas 


glass 


god 


goed 


good 


grund 


grond 


ground 


grses 


gras 


grass 


grene; groen 


groen 


green 


hser 


haar 


hair 


hagol 


hagel 


hail 


haleg 


heilig 


holy 


haeliand 


heiland 


savior 


hamor 


hamer 


hammer 


hana 


haan 


cock 



436 


ORIGINS OF THE 


ANGLO-SAXON. DUTCH. 


risen 


hen 


haefene 


haven 


heals 


hals 


heard 


hard 


h£la 


hiel 


hit 


het 


hii 


hoe 


hund 


hond 


hunig 


honig 


hus 


huts 


langsum 


lafigzaam 


lie 


lyk 


lif 


lyf 


lim 


lym 


list 


list 


liis 


luis 


mils 


muis 


nasgel 


nagel 


niwe 


nieuw 


nu 


nu 


ofer 


over 


pol 


poel 


pund 


pond 


regn 


regen 


regal 


regel 


ric 


ryk 


rum 


ruim 


sadol 


zadel 


sal 


zaal 


scolu 


school 


scyld 


schuld 


seolfor 


zilver 


slaep 


slaap 


smaec 


smaak 


snel 


snel 


sorg 


zorg 


spik 


spek 


spraec 


spraak 


stan 


steen 


steor 


stier 


stol 


stoel 


swaer 


zwaar 


sweart 


zwart 


tasfel 


tafel 


tam 


tam 


tan 


teen 


treow 


trouw 



THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



MODERN ENGLISH. 

hen 
haven 
neck 
hard 
heel 
it 

how 
hound 
honey- 
house 
slow 

dead body 
living body 
glue 
ruse 
louse 
mouse 
nail 
new 
now 
over 
pool 
pound 
rain 
rule 
rich 
room 
saddle 
hall 
school 
debt 
silver 
sleep 
taste 
quick 
care 
bacon 
speech 
stone 
steer 
stool 
heavy 

black ; swarthy 
table 
tame 
toe 
faith 



AND 


OF THE ENGL 


ISH LANGUAGE. 


ANGLO-SAXON. 


DUTCH. 


MODERN ENGLISH. 


trog 


frog 


trough 


wac 


week 


weak 


wsepen 


wapen 


weapon 


wang 


wang 


cheek 


weder 


weder 


weather 


weoruld 


wereld 


world 


wic 


wyk 


distrit 


wid 


wyd 


wide 


wif 


wyf 


wife 


win 


wyn 


wine 


wraec 


wraak 


vengeance 


wul 


wol 


wool 


wund 


wond 


wound 


wundor 


wonder 


wonder 


yfel 


euvel 


evil 



437 



Noticing in the verbs the constant change of an to en in the final syllable, 
we shall find in the roots a similar difference of spelling : 



ANGLO-SAXON. 


DUTCH. 


MODERN ENGLISH. 


beorgan 


bergen 


to put in a safe place 


berstan 


bersten 


to burst 


biddan 


bidden 


to pray 


bloesan 


blazen 


to blow 


brecan 


breken ' 


to break 


breowan 


brouwen 


to brew 


bnican 


bruiken 


to use; endure; brook 


bugan 


buigen 


to bend 


cennan 


kennen 


to be able 


clifian 


kleven 


to cleave 


cnedan 


kneden 


to knead 


crawan 


kraijen 


to crow 


cwecan 


kweeken 


to cultivate 


cwellan 


kwellen 


to torment ; to kill 


cyssan 


kussen 


to kiss 


dragan 


dragen 


to carry 


drifan 


dryven 


to urge on 


drincan 


drinken 


to drink 


etan 


eten 


to eat 


fretan 


vreten 


to devour 


gan 


gaan 


to go 


geapean 


gapen 


to yawn 


genesan 


genezen 


to cure 


hangian 


hangen 


to hang 


hatian 


haten 


to hate 


heawan 


houwen 


to hew 


helpan 


helpen 


to help 



438 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



ANGLO-SAXON. 


DUTCH. 


MODERN ENGLISH. 


hladan 


laden 


to load 


hwostan 


hoesten 


to cough 


leornian 


leeren 


to learn 


macian 


maken 


to make 


maengan 


mengen 


to mix 


melcan 


melken 


to milk 


neman 


neemen 


to take 


pluccian 


plukken 


to pluck 


rid an 


ryden 


to ride 


scafan 


schaven 


to plane 


sceran 


scheren 


to shave ; shear 


sceppan 


scheppen 


to create ; shape 


sciftan 


schiften 


to shift 


sciifan 


schuiven 


to shove 


snidan 


snyden 


to cut 


spreotan 


spruiten 


to sprout 


stempan 


siampen 


to stamp 


steorfan 


sterven 


to die 


streccan 


strekken 


to stretch 


s we fan 


zweven 


to hover 


swelgan 


zwelgen 


to swallow 


wacan 


waken 


to watch 


weccan 


wekken 


to wake up 


wegan 


wegen 


to weigh 


witan 


weten 


to know 



and many others. Some of these words disappeared in the course of the fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries, usually replaced by French equivalents, or else gradually 
assuming their present English form. There are, however, a certain number of 
words which exist only in Dutch and Modern English, no trace of them being 
found in Anglo-Saxon writings, except in rare instances, and then only as com- 
pounds and derivatives. From this circumstance, as well as from the fact that 
all these words are of a familiar nature, it is to be inferred that most of them 
formed also part of the ancient spoken language. The most common are : 



ENGLISH. 


DUTCH. 


ENGLISH. 


DUTCH. 


ballast 
bank 
boom 
boodle 


ballast 
bank 
boom 
boedel 


clammy 
cony 
cramp 
creek 


klam 
konyn 
kramp 
kreek 


brake 
brand-new 


brake 
brand-nieuw 


cripple 
curl 


kreupel 
krul 


brink 


brink 


dam 


dam 


bruin 

bull 

bundle 


bruin 

bul 

bundel 


damp 

dapper 

drift 


damp 

dapper 

drift 


buoy 


boei 


earnest 


ernst 


busy 
cable 


besig 
kabel 


fore-arm 
forebode 


voorarm 
voorbode 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



439 



ENGLISH. 


DUTCH. 


ENGLISH. 


DUTCH. 


forefather 


voorvader 


mole 


mol 


forefinger 


voorvinger 


navel 


navel 


foreground 


voorgrond 


nut 


neut 


forehand 


voorhand 


pap 


pap 


foreland 


voorland 


plank 


plank 


foreman 


voorman 


plough 


ploeg 


foretooth 


voortand 


poodle 


poedel 


foundling 


vondeling 


puss 


poes 


gang 


gang 


quackdoctor 


kwakzalver 


glib 


ghbberig 


reef 


reef 


groove 


groeve 


rover 


roover 


handy 


handig 


sake 


zaak 


handsome 


handzaam 


since 


sinds 


holla; hollo 


holla 


sketch 


schets 


hoop 


hoep 


skipper 


schipper 


hop 


hop 


sleigh ; sled 


sleej slede 


hump 


homp 


slot 


slot 


hut 


hut 


smack 


smak 


keel 


kiel 


snaffle 


snavel 


kit 


kit 


snare 


snaar 


knapsack 


knapzak 


snout 


snoet 


knob 


knop 


snuff 


snuif 


knuckle 


kneukel 


sod 


zode 


log 


log 


sop 


sop 


lot 


lot 


span 


span 


luck 


luk 


spar 


spar 


lukewarm 


leukwarm 


split 


split 


maid 


meid 


spool 


spoel * 


mangle 


mangel 


sprout 


spruit 


mat 


mat 


stoker 


stoker 


mate 


maat 


tattoo 


taptoe 


meager 


mager 


trigger 


trekker 


middle 


middel 


yacht 


yacht 



Among the verbs which Dutch and English have in common, and of which 
there is no record in Anglo-Saxon writings, we find the following : 



ENGLISH. 


DUTCH. 


ENGLISH. 


DUTCH. 


to babble 


babbele?i 


to crinkle 


krinkelen 


to blink 


blinken 


to dabble 


dabbelen 


to beseech 


besoeken 


to drill 


drillen 


to brabble 


brabbelen 


to foresee 


voorzien 


to brawl 


brallen 


to fumble 


fommelen 


to bubble 


bobbelen 


to gobble 


gobbelen 


to cackle 


kakelen 


to growl 


grollen 


to clap 


klappen 


to guess 


gissen 


to crimp 


krimpen 


to hack 


hakken 



440 



ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



ENGLISH. 


DUTCH. 


ENGLISH. 


DUTCH. 


to haggle 


hakkelen 


to puff 


puffen 


to hanker 


hunkeren 


to rattle 


ratelen 


to haul 


halen 


to ravel 


rafelen 


to hobble 


hobbelen 


to rumble 


rommelen 


to knap 


knappen 


to scrape 


schrapen 


to laugh 


lachen 


to scrub 


schrobben 


to loiter 


leuteren 


to slabber 


slobberen 


to loll 


lollen 


to smart 


smarten 


to loof 


loeven 


to snap 


snappen 


to lull 


lullen 


to spatter 


spatten 


to mingle 


mengelen 


to sprinkle 


sprenkelen 


to mope 


moppen 


to stammer 


stameren 


to nibble 


knibbelen 


to stipple 


stippelen 


to nip 


knypen 


to stop 


stoppen 


to ogle 


oogelen 


to tap 


tappen 


to pick 


pikken 


to tattle 


tateren 


to plunder 


plunderen 


to twine 


twynen 



A long list might thus be made out of English, Dutch, and Anglo-Saxon 
words that offer but little difference in spelling, still less in sound, and none at 
all in meaning. The little we have shown, however, will be sufficient to enable 
our readers to form their own opinion as regards the common origin of the peo- 
ple among whom these words were current ; for although identity of speech is 
not a test of identity of race when taken by itself, it is the strongest test of all 
when it confirms the evidences drawn from history. These, it is true, are in- 
complete as regards the details of Early English settlements ; but inasmuch as 
there is no evidence either of any subsequent immigration from Holland large 
enough to account for the numerous Dutch terms found in Early English writ- 
ings, we may safely conclude that most of these words and forms of expression 
have exited in the spoken language of the English people fully as long as those 
used in writing which we call Anglo-Saxon. The vitality of the former was 
due to their popular nature, which not only carried them through the long period 
of national depression which followed the Norman conquest, but even preserved 
them, without any change of meaning, up to the present day, in both England 
and Holland ; which fact, more strongly than any other, confirms and corrobo- 
rates the more slender evidences of history concerning the origin and continental 
homes of the first Teutonic settlers in Britain. 



John Barbour. 

John Barbour was born, according to some, in 1316 ; according to others, 
as late as 1330. He is described as being Archdeacon of Aberdeen in 1357. 
He died about the year 1395. His great work, entitled " The Bruce," was partly 
written in 1375, as he himself tells us. It extends to more than 13,000 lines, 
and describes the life and adventures of Robert Bruce, King of Scots, and his 
companions. 

In Barbour's day, the language of Teutonic Scotland was distinguished from 
that of the South of England (which was fast acquiring ascendancy over that 
of the northern counties as the literary dialect) by little more than the reten- 
tion, perhaps, of a good many vocables which had become obsolete among the 
English, and a generally broader enunciation of the vowel sounds. Hence, 
Barbour never supposes that he is writing in any other language than English any 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



441 



more than Chaucer does, and by this name not only he, but his successors, Dun- 
bar and even Lyndsay, always designate their native tongue. Down to the latter 
part of the sixteenth century, by the term Scotch was generally understood what 
is now called the Gaelic, or the Erse or Ersh, that is, Irish, the speech of the 
Celts or Highlanders. Divested of the peculiar spelling of the old manuscripts, 
the language of Barbour is quite as intelligible at the present day to an English 
reader as that of Chaucer; the obsolete words and forms are not more numer- 
ous in the one writer than in the other, though some that are used by Barbour 
may not be found in Chaucer, in the same way as many of Chaucer's are not in 
Barbour ; the chief general distinction being the greater breadth given to the 
vowel sounds in the dialect of the Scottish poet. The old termination of the 
present participle in and is also more frequently used than in Chaucer, to whom, 
however, it is not unknown, any more than its modern substitute ing is to Bar- 
bour. The most remarkable peculiarity of the more recent form of the Scottish 
dialect that is not found in Barbour is the abstraction of the final / from syllables 
ending in that consonant preceded by a vowel or diphthong : thus he never has 
a\ fa', fu! or fou\pow, how, for all, fall, full, poll, hole, etc. The subsequent 
introduction of this habit into the speech of the Scotch is perhaps to be attrib- 
uted to their imitation of the liquefaction of the / in similar circumstances by the 
French, from whom they have also borrowed a considerable number of their 
modern vocables, never used in England, and to whose accentuation, both of 
individual words and of sentences, theirs has much general resemblance, throw- 
ing, as it does, the emphasis, contrary to the tendency of the English language, 
upon one of the latter syllables, and also running into the rising in many cases 
where the English use the falling intonation. 

Barbour's work, though called by himself a " romaunt," is, and has always 
been, regarded as an authentic historical monument ; it has no doubt some in- 
cidents or embellishments which may be set down as fabulous, but these are in 
general very easily distinguished from the main texture of the narrative, which 
agrees substantially with the most trustworthy accounts drawn from other sources, 
and has been received and quoted as good evidence by all subsequent writers 
and investigators of Scottish history. The following passage, which occurs near 
the commencement of his poem, is a fair exemplification of the characteristics 
of his poetry. It describes the oppressions endured by the Scots during the oc- 
cupation of their country by the English King, Edward I, after his deposition 
ofBaliol: 

And gif that ony man them by 
Had ony thing that wes worthy, 
As horse, or hund, or other thing, 
That war pleasand to their liking ! 
With right or wrang it wald have they. 
And gif ony wald them withsay, 
They suld swa do, that they suld tine 1 
Other 2 land or life, or live in pine. 
For they dempt 3 them efter their will, 
Takand na kepe 4 to right na skill. 6 
Ah ! what they dempt them f elonly ! 6 
For gud knightes that war worthy, 
For little enchesoun 7 or then 8 nane 
They hangit be the neckbane. 
Als 9 that folk, that ever was free, 
And in freedom wont for to be, 
Through their great mischance and folly, 
Wor treated then sa wickedly, 
30 



442 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

That their faes 10 their judges ware : 
What wretchedness may man have mair ? u 

Ah ! Freedom is a noble thing ! 
Freedom mays 12 man to have liking; 13 
Freedom all solace to man gives : 
He lives at ease that freely lives ! 
A noble heart may have nane ease, 
Ne elles nought that may him please 
Giff freedom failye : for free liking 
Is yarnit u ower 15 all other thing. 
Nay he that aye has livit free 
May nought knaw well the property, 16 
The anger, na the wretched doom, 
That is couplit 17 to foul thirldoom. 18 
But gif he had assayit it, 
Then all perquer 19 he suld it wit ; 
And suld think freedom mair to prise 
Than all the gold in warld that is. 

I, lose. 2, either. 3, doomed, judged. 4, taking no heed, paying no re- 
gard. 5, reason. 6, Ah ! how cruelly they judged them ! 7, cause. 8, both 
the sense and the metre seem to require that this then (in orig. tha) should be 
transferred to the next line ; " they hangit then." 9, also, thus. 10, foes. 11, 
more. 12, makes. 13, pleasure. 14, yearned for, desired. 15, over, above. 
16, the quality, the peculiar state or condition? 17, coupled, attached. 18, 
thraldom. 19, exactly. 



Thomas Occleve or Hoccleve. 

Another poet who has not had his just share of celebrity is Occleve, whose 
compositions greatly assisted the growth, and diffused the popularity of the in- 
fant English poetry. He knew Chaucer personally, and calls himself Chaucer's 
disciple. He wrote his principal poems in the reign of Henry IV ; they are 
generally placed at 1420. In the following lines he complains that the labors 
of an author are generally much undervalued : 

Many men,, fadir, wenen 1 that writyng 

No travaile 8 is. They holde it but a game. 

A writer mote 3 thre thinges to hym knitte, 4 

And in tho 5 may be no disseveraunce. 

Mynde, eye, and hond. 6 None may from other flitte, 7 

But in him mote be joynte continuaunce. 

The mynde all hole, without variaunce, 

On eye and hond awaite 8 mote alway. 

And they two eke. 9 On hym it is no nay. 10 

These artificers see I, day by day, 

In the hottest of all her besynesse, 

Talken 11 and syng and make game and play, 

And forth her labour passeth with gladnesse. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 443 

But we labouren in travaillous 12 stilnesse. 
We stoupe 13 and stare upon the shepeskyn, 14 
And kepe most our songe and oure wordes in. 

1, think. 2, labor. 3, must. 4, unite. 5, those. 6, hand. 7, fly. 8, 
watch. 9, also. 10, not to be denied. 11, talk. 12, laborious. 13, stoop. 14, 
sheepskin. 

John Lydgate. 

John Lydgate, a monk of Bury, was born in the village of Lydgate, near 
Newmarket, about A. D. 1373, and died about A. D. 1460 ; but these dates are 
uncertain. He was ordained subdeacon in the Benedictine Monastery of Bury 
St. Edmunds in 1389, deacon in 1393, and priest in 1397. He is remarkable 
for the great ease, fluency, and extent of his writings, a catalogue of which would 
take up a considerable space. He composed verses with such facility that we 
can not expect to find his poetry of a very lofty character ; still, he is generally 
pleasing, though too much addicted to prolixity. Some of his best poems are 
his minor ones, of which the following deserves to be cited from its connection 
with the manners of the age. It is the poet's description of his own youth : 

Voyde of reason ; gyven to wilfulnes, 
Frowarde to vertue ; of Christ gave letell hede. 
Loth to lerne ; lovede no vertuous besynes, 
Save play or myrth. Straunge to spell or rede ; 
Folowynge all appetitis longyng to childhede ; 
Lyghtlye tournynge ; wild and selde sadde ; 
Wepynge for nought, and anone after gladde. 

For lytel werth to stryve with my felawe, 

As my passyons dyd my brydell lede ; 

Of the yarde stode I sometyme in awe; 

To be scoured that was all my drede. 

Lothe towarde scole ; lost my time indede ; 

Lyke a yonge colt that ranne withoute brydell, 

Made my frendes gyve goode to spende in ydell. 

I had in custom to come to scole late ; 

Not for to lerne but for a countenaunce. 

With my fellawes redy to debate ; 

To jangle 1 and jape 2 was set all my pleasaunce. 

Wherof rebuked this was my chevisaunce, 3 

To forge a lesynge 4 and therupon to muse. 

Whan I trespassed, myself to excuse. 

For my better dyd no reverence, 

Of my soveraynes gave no force at all, 

Wei obstynate by inobedience ; 

Ranne into gardeyns, appels there I stale, 

To gather frutes spared hedge nor wall ; 

To plucke grapes on other mennys vynes, 

Was more redy than for to saye mattynes. 



444 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

My lust was alway to scorne folke and gape, 

Shrewede tournes ever amonge to use 

To scoffe and move 5 lyke a wanton ape, 

When I dyd evyll, other I dyd abuse. 

Redyer cheristones 6 for to tell 

Than go to churche or here the sacrynge bell. 

Lothe to ryse, lother to bed at eve ; 
With unwashe hondes redy to dyner, 
My paternoster, my crede or my beleve, 
Last at the looke. Lo this was my maner, 
Warred 7 with ecke 8 wynde as doth a rede spere. 9 
Snobbed of my frendes such thatches 10 to amende, 
Made deffe eare, list not to them attende. 

My port, my pase, my fate alway unstable ; 

My looke, myn eyen unsure and vagabounde, 

In all my werkes sodeynly chaungeable. 

To all goode themes 11 contrary was I founde. 

Now oversad, now mornyng, now jocounde. 

Wilful, recheles, madd, startyng as a hare ; 

To folowe my luste, for no thynge wolde I spare. 

I, to babble. 2, to jest. 3, agreement. 4, lie. 5, to mock. 6, nonsense. 
7, turning. 8, each. 9, sapling. 10, roguery, n, qualities, x, unwilling. 



Extract from the Maister of Oxford's Catechism, writ- 
ten TOWARD THE MlDDLE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 

Questions bitwene the Maister of Oxinford and hys Scoler. 

The Clerkys Question. Say me where was God whan he made 
heven and erthe ? 

The Maister's Answer. I saye, in the ferther ende of the 
wynde. 

C. Tell me what worde God first spake ? 

M. Be thowe made light, and light was made. 

C. Whate is God ? 

M. He is God, that all thynge made, and all thynge hath in 
hys power. 

C. In howe many dayes made God all thyngis ? 

M. In six dayes. The first daye he made light ; the second 
daye he made all thynge that helden heven ; the thirde daye he 
made water and erthe ; the fourth daye he made the firmament 
of heven ; the v th daye he made sterrys j 1 the vj th daye he made 
almaner 3 bestis, fowlis, and the see, and Adam, the firste man. 

C. Wherof was Adam made ? 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



445 



M. Of viij thyngis : The first of erthe, the second of water, 
the iij de of fyre, the iiij* 11 of wynde, the v th of clowdys, the yp 
dewe wherby he sweteth, the vij th of flowres, wherof Adam hath 
his ien, 3 the viij th is salte wherof Adam hath salt teres. 4 

C. Wherof was founde the name of Adam ? 

M. Of fowre sterrys, this been the namys : Arcax, Dux, Aros- 
tolym, and J/bmfumbres. 

C. Of what state was Adam whan he was made ? 

M. A man of xxx wynter of age. 

C. And of what length was Adam ? 

M. Of iiij score 5 and vj enchys. 

C. How longe lyved Adam in this worlde ? 

M. ix, c, and xxx ty wynter, and afterwarde in hell tyll the 
passion of our lord God. 

C. How longe was Adam in Paradys ? 

M. vij yere, and at vij yeres ende he trespased ayenst God 
for the apple that he hete on a Friday e, and an anjell drove him 
owte. 

C. Howe many children had Adam and Eve ? 

M. xxx men children and xxx wymen children. 

C. Whate citie is there the son goth to reste ? 

M. A citie that is called Sarica. 

C. Whate be the best erbes that God loved ? 

M. The rose and the lilie. 

C. Whate fowle loved God best ? 

M. The dove, for God sent his spiret from heven in likenes 
of a dove. 

C. Whiche is the best water that ever was ? 

M. From Jurdan, for God was baptysed thereyn. 

C. Wher be the anjelles 6 that God put owte* of heven and 
bycam 8 devilles ? 

M. Som into hell, and som reyned in the skey, and som in 
the erth, and som in waters and in wodys. 9 

C. Of whate thynge be men moste ferde ? 10 

M. Men be moste ferde of deth. 

C. Who cleped 11 first God? 

M. The devyll. 

C. Whiche is the heviest thynge bering? 

M. Syn is the heviest. 

C. Whiche be the iiij thyngis that never was ful nor never 
shalbe ? 

M. The first is erth, the second is fyre, the thirde is hell, the 
fourth is a covitous man. 

C. Howe many maner of birdis been there, and howe many 
of fisshes ? 

M. liiij of fowles, and xxxvj of fisshes. 

C. Whate hight the iiij waters that renneth through para- 
dys? 12 



446 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

M. The one hight 13 Fyson, the oder 14 Egeon, the iij de hight 
Tygrys, and the iiij th Efifraton. Thise been milke, hony, oyll, and 
wyne. 

C. Wherefor is the son 15 rede 16 at even? 

M. For he gothe toward hell. 

C. Howe many langagis been there? 

M. lxij, and so many discipules had God withowte hys ap- 
postoles. MS. Lansdowne, No. 762. 



I, stars. 2, every kind of. 3, eyes. 4, tears. 5, twenty yards. 6, angels. 
7, out. 8, became. 9, woods. 10, afraid. II, called. 12, run. 13, is called. 
14, other. 15, sun. 16, red. 



A Bill of Dinner Fare for a Feast at Oxford in Octo- 
ber, 1452. 

Primus Cursus. 

A sutteltee. 1 The bore hed 2 and the bulle. Brawne 3 and 
mustarde. Frumenty 4 with venysoun. Fesaunt in brase. 5 Swan 
with chawduen. 6 Capon of grece. Herunsew. 7 Poplar. 8 Custad 
ryalle. 9 Graunt fflaupant 10 departid, 11 Lesshe damask. 13 Fru- 
tour lumbert. 13 A sutteltee. 

Secundus Cursus. 

Viant in brase. Crane in sawse. 14 Yong pocok. 15 Cony. 16 
Pyions. 17 Buttor. 18 Curlew. Carcelle. 19 Partriche. Venysoun 
bake. Fryed mete in past. 20 Lesshe lumbert. A ffrutour. A 
sutteltee. 

Tertius Cursus. 

Gely 21 ryalle departid. Haunche of venysoun rostid. Wode- 
cok. 22 Plover. Knottis. 23 Hyntis. 24 Quaylis. Larkys. Quynces 
bake. Viaht in past. A frutour. Lesshe. A sutteltee. 

Thys was the service at the coman .... of maister Nevell 
the sone of the erle of Sarisbury, which commenced at Oxenford 
the .... daye of Oct. . . . the yere of our Lord mcccclij, 
and the yere of Kyng vj th xxxj th . 

MS. Cotton, Tit. B. xi, fol. 21 v. 



I, devises made of sugar and paste. 2, boar's head. 3, a large piece of 
meat. 4, hulled wheat boiled in milk and seasoned with cinnamon,- sugar, etc. 
5, ragout. 6, a kind of forced meat. 7, heron soup. 8, a pottage with a pecul- 
iar kind of herbs. 9, royal. 10, pancake. 11, distributed. 12, perfumed. 13, 
high-seasoned meat-pie. 14, sauce. 15, peacock. 16, rabbit. 17, seeds of the 
piony. 18, butter. 19, sanderling. 20, paste (pie). 21, jelly. 22, woodcock. 
23, small birds. 24, sea-larks. 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



Old English Gastronomy. 



447 



Ther was a marchaunt of Ynglond whyche awenturyd 1 unto 
ferre cuntre. When he had byn a monyth 2 or more, there 
dwellyd a grete lorde of that contre whyche badd this Englysse 
marchaunte to dener. And when they were at dyner, the lord 
bad hym prophesyat, or myche goode do hyt hym, and he sayd 
he merravlyd 3 that he ete no better hys mete. And he sayd that 
Englysshemen ar callyd the grettyste fedours 4 in the worlde, and 
one man wolde ete more then vj of anoder nacyoun, and more 
vetelles 5 spend then in ony regioun. And then the Englysshe 
marchaunte anssweryd and sayd to the lorde that hyt was so, and 
for iij reasonable cawsys 6 that they were servyd with grete plenty 
of veteyll; one was for love, anoder for phesyke, and the thyrde 
for drede. 7 Sir, as towchyn 8 for love, we use to have mony 9 
dyvers metys for owr frendes and kynnesfolke, some lovythe one 
maner of mete and some anoder, becawse every man shulde be 
contente. The second cawse ys for phesyke, for dyvers maladyes 
that men have, some wyll ete one mete and some anoder, becawse 
every man shold be pleasyd. The thyrde cawse is for drede; we 
have so grete abowndance and plente in ower realme, yf that we 
shulde not kyll and dystroye them, they wolde dystroy and de- 
voure us, bothe beste 10 and f owles. 

MS. Harl., 2252. 



1, adventured. 2, month. 3, marveled. 4, feeders. 5, provisions. 6, 
causes. 7, dread. 8, touching. 9, many. 10, beasts. 



Miscellanea. 

The following miscellaneous scraps, all written about the middle of the 
fifteenth century, may give us, from their familiar nature, some idea of the spoken 
language of that time : 

RULES FOR PRACTICAL LIFE. 

Arise erly, 

Serve God devowtely, 

And the worlde besely, 1 

Doo thy work wysely, 

Yeve 8 thyn almes secretely, 

Goo by the waye sadly, 

Answer the people demeurly, 3 

Goo to thy mete 4 apetitely, 

Sit therat discretely, 

Of thy tunge be not to liberally, 

Arise therfrom temperally, 

Goo to thy supper soberly, 



448 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

And to thy bed merely, 6 
And slepe suerly. 6 

MS. Lansdowne, No. 762. 



I, busily. 2, give. 3, demurely. 4, dinner. 5, merrily. 6, surely. 
THE EVILS OF LENDING. 

I wolde lene 1 but I ne 2 dare, 
I have lant 3 I will bewarre, 
When y lant y had a frynd, 
When y hym asked he was unkynd : 
Thus of my frynd y made my foo, 
Therfore darre I lene no moo. 4 
I pray ys of your gentilnesse 
Report for no unkyndnesse. 



MS. Harl., 941. 



1, lend. 2, not. 3, lent. 4, more. 
PROVERBS. 

Whersoever thou traveleste, este, weste, northe or southe, 
Learne never to loke a geven horsse in the mouthe. 

MS. Harl., No. 4294. 

Wyssdome dothe warne the in many a place, 

To truste no suche flatteres as gill jere in thy face. 

MS. Harl., No. 4298. 

He that spendes myche 1 and getythe 2 nowghte, 3 
And owith myche and hathe nowghte, 
And lokys 4 in hys purse and fynde nowghte, 
He may be sary, 6 thowe 6 he seythe nowghte. 

MS. Harl., 2252. 

Two wymen in one howse, 
Two cattes and one mowse, 
Two dogges and one bone, 
Maye never accorde in one. 

I, much. 2, gets. 3, nothing. 4, looks. 5, sorry. 6, though. 
EARLY RECEIPT FOR MAKING GUNPOWDER. 

To make Gode Gonepoudre. 

Take the poudre of ij unces of salpetre and half an unce of 
brymston, and half an unce of lyndecole, 1 and temper togidur 2 in 
a mortar with rede 3 vynegre, 4 and make it thyk 5 as past 6 til the 
tyme that ye se 7 neyther salpetre ne 8 brymston, and drye it en 9 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 449 

the ffyre in an erthe pan with soft ffyre, and when it is wele dryed 
grynde it in a morter til it be smalle poudre, and than sarse it 
throow 10 a sarse, 11 etc. 

MS. Art. Soc. lib., 101. 



1, charcoal made of the wood of the linden tree. 2, together. 3, red. 4, 
vinegar. 5, thick. 6, paste. 7, see. 8, nor. 9, on. 10, through. 11, sieve. 



RECEIPTS FOR COPYISTS AND SCRIBES. 

To make Texte Ynke. 

Take ij unces of grene vitriole, and cast hym together yn a 
quarte of standyng rayne water, and lett yt rest iiij days, and 
than take iij unces of gome, 1 and put therto, and lett yt stond iij 
dayes togedur and rest, and thou hast gode ynke for texte lettre 
and for almaner bokys. 2 (Ibid.) 

For to Wryte Golde. 

Take grey pomys, grynde yt smalle, temper yt with gleyre 3 as 
rede ynke, and wryte therwith ; and gwhan 4 yt ys drye, rub theron 
gold or sylver, and as the metal ys so yt wylle be sene, 5 and than 
borne 6 yt with the tosch 7 of a kalf. 

MS. Cambr. Pub. Lib., I, 73. 

To done awey what is Y-wreten* in Velyn or Parchement with- 
owte any Pomyce. 

Take the juyst 9 of rewe 10 and of nettyl, 11 in Marche, in Averel, 
or in May, and medyl 13 hit 13 with chese, mylke of a kow, or of 
shepe, put therto unqueynt 14 lym, medle hem wele togedur, and 
make therof a lofe, 15 and dry hit at the sonne, and make therof 
powdur. Whan thou wolt do awey the lettre, wete a pensel with 
spotil 16 or with watur, and moist therwith the lettres that thou 
wolt do awey, and then cast the powdur therupon, and with thi 
nail thou maist done awey the lettres, that hit schal nothyng been 
a-sene, 17 withowte any apeyrement. 18 

MS. Sloane, 1313. 



1, gum. 2, all kinds of books. 3, any slimy matter like the glair of an egg. 
4, when. 5, seen. 6, burnish. 7, tooth. 8, written. 9, juice. 10, rue. II, 
nettles. 12, mix. I3,it. 14, unquenched (quick). 15, loaf. 16, spittle, saliva. 
17, seen. 18, injury. 

RECEIPT FOR TO MAKE A WOMAN'S NEKE WHITE AND SOFTE. 

Tak fresch swynes gres 1 molten, and hennes gres and the 
white of egges half rosted, and do thereto a lytel 2 popyl 3 mele, 4 
enoynt hir therwith ofte. — Reliquioz Antiquoz y p. 53. 

1, grease. 2, little. 3, poppy. 4, meal, flour. 



450 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

RECEIPT FOR HYM THAT HAVES THE SQUYNANSY. 1 

Tak a fatte katte, and fla 2 hit wele, 3 and clene, 4 and draw oute 
the guttes, and tak the gres of an urcheon, 5 and the fatte of a bare, 
and resynes and sauge, and gumme of wodebynde, and virgyn 
wax ; al this mye 6 smal, and farse 7 the catte within als thu farses 
a gos, 8 rost hit hale, 9 and geder 10 the gres and enoynt hym thar- 
with. — Idem., p. 54. 

1, quinsy sore throat. 2, flay. 3, neat. 4, clean. 5, hedge -hog. 6, pound. 
7, stuff, 8, goose. 9, whole. 10, gather, 

NOTES OF OWNERSHIP. 

It was a common custom in the early times for owners of books to write in 
them metrical notes of their right of ownership. The following was written on 
a book of Maister Johan Shirley : 

Yee that desyre in herte and have plesaunce 

Olde stories in bokis 1 for to rede, 

Gode matiers 2 putt hem in remembraunce, 

And of the other take yee none hede ; 

Byseching yowe 3 of your godely 4 hede, 

Whane 5 yee thys boke have over-redde and seyne, 6 

To Johan Sherley restore yee it ageine. 7 

MS. Ashm., 59. 



I, books. 2, matters. 3, you. 4, kind. 5, when. 6, seen. 7, again. 

ANOTHER, WRITTEN BY THE COUNTESS OF WORCESTER, ABOUT 
THE YEAR I44O. 

And I yt los, and yow yt fynd, 
I pray yow hartely to be so kynd, 
That yow wil take a letel payne, 
To se my boke brothe home agayne. 

MS. Harl., 125 1. 



Printing in England. — Caxton. 

The art of printing had been practised nearly thirty years in Holland and 
Germany before it was introduced into England — with so tardy a pace did 
knowledge travel to and fro over the earth in those days, or so unfavorable was 
the state of the country for the reception of even the greatest improvements in 
the arts. At length a citizen of London secured a conspicuous place for his name 
forever in the annals of English literature, by being, so far as is known, the first 
of his countrymen that learned the new art, and certainly the first who either 
practised it in England, or in printing an English book. William Caxton was 
born, as he tells us himself, in the Weald of Kent, it is supposed, about the year 
1412. In 1441 he was appointed by the Mercers' Company to be their agent in 
Holland, Zealand, Brabant, etc., and in this employment he spent twenty-three 
years, after which he passed into the service of the King's sister, Margaret of 



AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



451 



York, who married Charles, Duke of Burgundy. His expertness in penmanship, 
his knowledge of different languages, and his intercourse with men of learning 
on the Continent, would naturally render him very serviceable to an enlightened 
princess, at a time when the newly-invented art of printing was just beginning 
to give an extraordinary impulse to the cultivation of literature among persons 
in the higher ranks of society. And as his opportunities must have led him to 
watch with interest the progress of typography abroad, it is not surprising that 
the duchess should encourage him in his efforts to introduce into his own coun- 
try an art which was going to mark a new era in the history of the world. She 
employed him in translating from the French Raoul le Fevre's Recueil des His- 
toires de Troye, a task which he commenced in 1468, and finished in 147 1. The 
original was the first book ever printed in England, and his translation of it was 
the third. He modestly apologizes for the imperfections of his translation by 
saying that he had never been in France, and that he had resided out of Eng- 
land for nearly thirty years ; and in fact his orthography betrays a long residence 
in Holland. The usual supposition has been that he brought the art of print- 
ing into England in 1474. From a very curious placard, a copy of which in 
Caxton's largest type is now at Oxford, we learn that he exercised his business 
at Westminster in the Almonry. It is as follows : 

If it plese any man spirituel or temporel to bye ony Pyes of 
two or thre comemoracyons of Salisburi enprynted after the forme 
of this present lettre whiche ben wel and trewly correct, late hym 
come to Westmonaster in to the Almonesrye at the reed pale and 
he shal have them good chepe. 

The following extract from his preface to a translation of Vergil's JEneid 
is important in the history of the English language, for its mentioning the great 
diversity of dialects existing at that time, and changing from one generation to 
another. It moreover shows the continual tendency of the age to introduce 
foreign words and expressions, and also implies that the old English had fallen 
entirely into disuse toward the latter part of the fifteenth century : 

I toke an olde boke and redde thereyn, and certainly the 
Englysshe was so rude and brood, that I coude not wele under- 
stonde it. . . . Our langage now vsed varyeth ferre from that 
whiche was vsed and spoken when I was borne. For we Eng- 
lysshe men ben borne under the domynacyon of the mone, whiche 
is neuer stedfaste, but ever wauerynge, wexynge one season, and 
waneth and dycreased another season ; and that comyne Eng- 
lysshe that is spoken in one shyre varyeth from another, inso- 
muche, that in myne dayes happened, that certayn marchauntes 
were in a shippe in Tamyse, for to have sayled ouer the see into 
Zelande, and for lacke of wynde thei taryed atte Forlond, and 
wente to londe for to refresshe them ; and one of theym, named 
Sheffelde, a mercer, came into a hows, and axed for mete and 
specyally he axyd for eggys, and the goode wyf answerde, that 
she coude speke no Frensshe. And the marchaunt was angry, 
for he also coude speke no Frensshe, but wolde haue hadde eggys, 
and she vnderstode hym not. And thenne at laste another sayd, 
that he wolde haue eyren ; and the goode wyf sayd that she un- 
derstode hym wele. Loo what sholde a man in thyse dayes now 
wryte, eggys or eyren ? Certainly it is harde to playse euery man 
by cause of dyuersyte and chaunge of langage ; for in thyse dayes 



452 ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

euery man that is in ony reputacyon in his countre, wil utter hys 
comynycacyon and maters in suche maners & termes, that fewe 
men shal vnderstonde theym, and som honest and grete clerkes 
haue been wyth me, and desyred me to wryte the moste curyous 
termes that I coude fynde. And thus between playne, rude, and 
curyous, I stand abashed. But in my judgemente the comyn 
termes that ben dayli vsed ben lyghter to be vnderstonde than 
the olde and auncyent Englisshe. 

We here close the list of specimens of Early English, 
which represents the language of all classes of people in 
England — poets, chroniclers, divines, preachers, citizens, 
noblemen, etc., from the time of the conquest to the end 
of the fifteenth century. These have been presented to 
the reader in a chronological succession, so as to enable 
him to follow the progress of the language, and the grad- 
ual changes which most contributed to produce it. In 
their selection care has been taken not to omit such pieces 
as from their familiar nature better represent the colloquial 
language, and which to the philologer are often of more 
importance than the elegant phrases of learned authors. 
In fact, it can not have escapee! attention that in the former 
the language is generally more intelligible, and seems al- 
most more advanced than in the latter ; but it must not 
be forgotten that in all tongues the principal and most 
needed terms and expressions have been made by the peo- 
ple at large in the daily course and business of life, long 
before literature began. It is language that shapes liter- 
ature, rather than literature language. The busy world 
creates the phrases which the student uses. Writers may 
prune and polish them, and sometimes multiply ; but they 
never improve language in its stages of formation as the 
active talking public, ever thinking and discoursing, 
though rarely composing. 



APPENDIX 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



" It is owing to the coming of William," says Dr. Free- 
man, in his History of the Norman Conquest, " that we can 
not trace the history of our native speech, that we can 
not raise our wail for its corruption without borrowing 
largely from the store of foreign words which, but for his 
coming, would never have crossed the sea. So strong a 
hold have the intruders taken on our soil that we can not 
tell the tale of their coming without their help." 

This language is strong, but true nevertheless; and 
though there is hardly occasion, it would seem, to dwell 
so despondingly on the corruption of an idiom from which 
English literature has derived but little if any value, and 
which, after its so-called " corruption," has given to the 
world a Chaucer, a Spencer, a Shakespeare, a Milton — 
" each in his own field as great as the mightiest that ever 
wielded a pen," it is not the less certain that the changes 
which transformed the original speech of England into 
modern English are greatly due to the influence named, 
" which began," as Dr. Freeman further observes, " in the 
eleventh century, and has never been stopped." 

If, then, we would account for the real nature of this 
influence, something more is necessary than a mere ac- 
quaintance with modern French, which, much as it may 
assist the student in apprehending the original meaning 
of many English words, can do so only to a limited ex- 
tent, unless he be acquainted also with the sources from 
which such words have been derived. In this respect 
etymological dictionaries, even when correct, are of little 
or no avail. Nothing, indeed, is gained by learning that 



456 APPENDIX. 

certain English words are derived from either French or 
Latin ; nor is the distinction itself of any value to the stu- 
dent, unless he knows both idioms, and by a previous ac- 
quaintance with the causes and circumstances of their 
transformation, and a correct knowledge of the rules which 
govern the change of forms which words assume in passing 
from one language into another, he has acquired the habit 
of generalizing so as to recognize at a glance the inherent 
meaning of each word in the foreign text, independently 
of the many transformations through which it may have 
gone, and by which its original stamp is often much dis- 
guised. The number of French words that once were 
Latin and have found their way into the English vocabu- 
lary being quite extensive, a clear understanding of this 
important part of the national language may require some 
special assistance, which the student who has gone thus 
far through this volume will undoubtedly be pleased to 
find in the following brief chapters on the origin and for- 
mation of the French language. 



CHAPTER I. 

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE. 

As far back as evidence can be traced we find the soil 
of France occupied by two distinct races — the Gauls, by 
far the most numerous and occupying almost the entire 
country, and the Iberians who, under the name of Aqui- 
tanians, inhabited the southwestern parts comprised be- 
tween the Garonne and the Pyrenees. At a later, though 
also very remote, epoch, other Iberians, called Ligurians, 
coming from Spain, invaded Gaul, and spread along the 
Mediterranean. Later still, about six hundred years be- 
fore our era, some Greek colonies, in order to escape 
the Persian yoke, left their country, and settled among 
these very Ligurians in the southeast of Gaul, where, near 
the mouths of the Rhone, they founded the city of Mas- 
silia, now called Marseilles. 

All we know of the Gauls and their early history is 
through their enemies the Romans, by whom they are 
described as a wandering people and of constant annoy- 
ance to them, either attacking them with overwhelming 
forces, as in the case of Brennus, or uniting with hostile 
neighbors, as the Etruscans and Samnites. Later on they 
were found in almost every war against the Romans. 
Hannibal made them his allies, and in the battles of Cannes 
and Trasimene they formed a large part of his army. 
About 283 B. C. a body of Gauls under Brennus settled in 
Asia Minor, where they became known as the Galatians, 
to whose very descendants the Apostle Paul addressed 
his Epistle. Wherever they went, we. find them always 
described as keeping exclusively to their own manners 
and their own language. 1 

1 Galatas, excepto sermone grseco, quo omnis Oriens loquitur, propriam 
linguam eamdem pene habere quam Treviros ; nee referre, si aliqua exinde cor- 
ruperint, cum et Afri phceniciam linguam nonnulla ex parte maturint, et ipsa 
latinitas et regionibus quotidie mutetur et tempore. — Saint Jerome, Comon. 
Epist. ad Galatas, lib. ii, Procem. There are many Celtic names in Galatia and 
the neighboring parts of Bithynia and Magnesia ; such as the rivers s£sius t 
AZsyros, and s£svn t which apparently contain the root es, water. Abr-os-tola 
31 



458 APPENDIX. 

When Cassar entered Gaul he found there three races, 
different in speech, manners, and laws — the Aquitanians 
still occupying the land between the Garonne and the 
Pyrenees ; the Belgians between the Rhine, the Seine, 
and the Marne ; and the Celts, whose country extended 
from the frontiers of Belgium to those of Aquitania, 1 with 
the exception of certain parts between the Seine and 
Loire on the Atlantic coast, where the Belgians prevailed, 
and which bore the name of Armorica? This classifica- 
tion of the various tribes originally inhabiting the coun- 
try now called France does not include an old Roman 
settlement around Narbonne (Narbo Martius) nor the 
Greek colonies aforementioned, nor some German tribes 
that of late had commenced to cross the Rhine and to set- 
tle on the left bank of that river. 

Each of these peoples had its own peculiar speech, 
with this difference, that while the language of the Aqui- 
tanians bore a close resemblance to that of the Spanish 
Iberians, and none whatsoever to that of the Gauls and 
the Belgians, the idioms of the latter two differed but 
little, and might be considered as dialects of the same lan- 
guage. 3 This language is generally known as the Celtic. 

seems to contain the root aber as well. Vindia, Cinna, and Briania call to mind 
the roots gwent, cenn, and bryn. Armorium reminds us of Armorica. Olenus, 
in Galatia, reminds us of Olenceum in Britain, and Olin in Gaul. Agannia re- 
minds us of Agennum in Gaul. An Episcopus Taviensis came from Galatia to 
attend the Nicene Council. We have also the apparently Celtic names Acito- 
rizacum, Ambrenna, Eccobriga, Landrosia, Roslogiacum, and the river Siberis. 
— Diefenbach, Celtica, ii, part i, pp. 256, 313 ; Thierry, Histoire des Gaulois, vol. 
i, pp. 145, seq. ; De Belloguet, Ethnog/nie, vol. i, p. 249. 

1 Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgce, aliam 
Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtce, nostra Galli appellantur. Hi omnes 
lingua, institutis, legibus inter se differunt. Gallos ab Aquitanis Garumna flu- 
men, a Belgis Matrona et Sequana dividit. — Caesar, De Bello Gallico, lib. i. 

01 /*V 5rj, rpixv Si-fipovv, 'Anoviravovs ical Be\yas KaXovvres teal KtXras. — 
Strabo, iv. 

Celtarum quae pars Galliae tertia est. — Livy, V, c. xxxiv. 

Temporibus priscis cum laterent hae partes ut barbarae, tripartitae fuisse 
creduntur ; in Celtas eosdem Gallos divisae, et Aquitanos et Belgas. — Ammian. 
Marcellin. XV, c. xxvii. 

2 Mcto 5e ra A.e;£0eVra edinj, to \onra. BeKyoov icrr\v iQrt), ra>v irapuKcavirwv • 
& Oveveroi fxev eialv ol vavnaxho'avTes irpbs Kaicapa. — Strabo, iv. 

In this passage of Strabo, napwKeavirrjs seems to be the translation of the 
Celtic Armorik, an adjective formed of ar, "on, by, or at," and mor, "sea," from 
which we have the name of Armorica, in French Armorique. 

3 Tovs ficp 'AfcoviTcwobs, reKecos efyWayfievovs ov rrjs yKdorrris fxSvov, a\\a ko\ 
rots ad>yuo.<nv, i/xcpepeTs *lfiripo~i fiaWop *q TaXdrais. — 'Ait\6js yap elirelv, ol ' AkovXtovoX 
Sicupepovffi rod ya\ariKov <pvhov, Kara re ras tuv cwfiaWov KaraffKevas, Kal Kara, 
t))v y\d»rrav 4olKao~i 5e /xaWov *Ifir}po~iv. — Tovs 8e \onrovs, ya\aTiic(]v fj.\v t^]V 
tyiv, 6fwy\&TT0vs 5' ov trdvras, a\\' irtovs piKpbv irapaWdTToyras rats yK&rrws. 
— Strabo, iv. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 459 

As the Gauls far outnumbered the other tribes, the 
country at large was usually called Gaul, and always so 
referred to by Roman writers. The people are described 
as men tall and fair, fond of dress and ornament, quick- 
witted, eager for excitement and display, whose ambition 
it was to fight well and to speak well. Strabo acknowl- 
edges their advanced condition in civilization, and, ac- 
cording to Caesar, they differed but little from the Romans 
in their general mode of life. The colony at Marseilles, 
though Greek in language, was almost entirely Roman- 
ized in manners and customs, owing to its long and steady 
intercourse with Rome, many of whose merchants resided 
among them. It was even the close relations thus estab- 
lished which contained the germ of all the woes that sub- 
sequently befell the entire Gallic nation. 

The success and wealth of the Greek colony of Mar- 
seilles, exciting the envy of the neighboring Ligurians, 
often led to disturbances, which finally culminated in open 
war. Given to business and to the arts of peace exclu- 
sively, and unable to cope with their warlike neighbors, 
the former felt constrained to call in the aid of their ancient 
allies, the Romans. The latter eagerly seized the opportu- 
nity, and took possession of the entire southeastern part of 
Gaul, to which they gave the name of Transalpine Ro- 
man Province (154 B. c). One century later, Julius Caesar, 
being sent to this province to govern it as proconsul, took 
advantage of some pretext to attack the Gauls that were 
still independent, after which he undertook the conquest 
of the whole land. The Gauls resisted heroically, but 
had to yield at last to superior skill and discipline. Caesar 
broke their spirit by the most cruel measures ; at Bourges 
he massacred ten thousand women and children ; at Ux- 
ellodunum he cut off his prisoners' heads ; at Vannes he 
slew the chiefs of a tribe, and sold the rest at auction. 
After ten years of this work Gaul was subdued and 
placed under Roman rule. Then the ambitious Caesar, 
having become the rival of Pompey, felt the necessity of 
making friends and partisans of those very enemies, on 
whom his bravery and skill had brought so many disas- 
ters. In order to succeed he spared neither favors nor 
promises, admitted natives to the senate, 1 and established 
schools in various parts of the country. 

1 Gallos Caesar in triumphum ducit ; idem in curiam. 
Galli braccas deposuerunt, latum clavum sumpserunt. 

Suetonius, Jul. Cas., c. Ixxx, 3. 



460 APPENDIX. 

After Caesar's death, the Emperor Augustus made a 
new division of Gaul, and gave it an organization entirely 
Roman. From that time forward the Latin language 
spread rapidly throughout all Gaul by the administration, 
the courts of justice, the laws, the political, civil, and mili- 
tary institutions, religion, commerce, literature, the the- 
atre, the circus, public sports and games, and all the 
other means which Rome knew so well how to use in or- 
der to impose her language upon other nations as she im- 
posed on them the yoke of her dominion. 1 All resistance 
was crushed by extermination or deportation, and the 
vacuum filled up with colonists and freedmen from Rome. 
By this method conquerors and conquered were in a few 
years welded into one mass. Thus, in less than a century 
after the conquest, Latin was spoken in many parts of 
Gaul outside the Transalpine Roman Province, where, 
long before Caesar's time, the Latin language had al- 
ready become current. Plotius and Gniphon, two Latin 
scholars, whom history mentions as having opened in 
Rome a school of rhetoric and grammar, eighty-seven 
years before Christ, were Gauls ; many Roman families 
resided in Gaul along the banks of the Rhone, and Cicero 
informs us that even in his time the country was full of 
Roman merchants, and that hardly any business was 
transacted there without some Roman having; a hand in 
it. 2 But what contributed more than any thing to the 
spread of Latin throughout the land was the necessity for 
its inhabitants to apply to Roman magistrates for obtain- 
ing justice, as all cases were pleaded in Latin, and prae- 
tors were expressly forbidden to issue decrees in any lan- 
guage but Latin. 3 

Claudius, the successor of Augustus, who was born at 

1 Imperiosa nimirum civitas {Roma) non solum jugum, verum etiam lin- 
guam suam domitis gentibus imponere voluit. — Saint Augustine, De civitate 
Dei, XIX, c. vii. 

2 Referta Gallia negotiatorum est, plena civium Romanorum ; nemo Gallo- 
rum, sine cive Romano, quidquam negotii gerit. — Cic, Orat pro Fonteio, I. For 
a more detailed account, see Herbermann's Business Life in Ancient Rome. 

3 Decreta a pretoribus latine interponi debent. — L. Decreta, D., lib, xlii, 
tit. i, De re judicata. 

Magistratus vero prisci quantopere suam populique Romani majestatem 
retinentes se gesserint, hinc cognosci potest, quod, inter caetera obtinendae 
gravitatis indicia, illud quoque magna cum perseverantia custodiebant, ne 
Graecis unquam nisi latine responsa darent. Quin etiam ipsa linguae volubi- 
litate, qua plurimum valet, excussa, per interpretem loqui cogebant ; non in 
urbe tantum nostra, sed etiam in Graacia et Asia ; quo scilicet latinas voces 
honos per omnes gentes venerabilior diffunderetur. — Valerius Maximus, lib. ii, 

C. 2. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 461 

Lyons among the Gauls, always liked the province where 
he had passed his childhood, and it was he who granted 
to all the Gallic towns the Right of City, which opened 
the road for every citizen to the highest offices and dig- 
nities of the empire. Thus ambition, interest, daily rela- 
tions with the Roman administration, everything in short 
that could Romanize the people, induced the Gauls to 
make themselves familiar with the Latin language, espe- 
cially under such a protector as Claudius, who did not 
admit that one could be a Roman citizen without know- 
ing the Roman language ; 1 and so strictly did he carry 
out these views that a distinguished magistrate, a Greek 
by birth, having presented himself before him, and not 
being able to express himself correctly in Latin, was by 
his order not only struck off the roll of magistrates, but 
also deprived of his right of citizenship. 2 Under such 
influences the Latin language made most rapid progress 
throughout the whole country, so much so that, only a 
few years after the death of Claudius, Martial writes that 
at Vienne even the women and children read his verses ; 3 
and Pliny boasted that his works were known throughout 
all Gaul. 4 Even in Strabo's time, the Gauls, he says, 
could no longer be looked upon as barbarians, inasmuch 
as most had adopted the language and the mode of living 
of the Romans. 5 When Caracalla had given the right of 
citizenship to all the inhabitants of the provinces (212 
A. D.), the laws of Rome became the common law of al- 
most all Gaul ; the majority of the inhabitants took Roman 
names, assumed the toga, and delighted in calling their 
country Roman Gaul or Romania ; numerous marriages 
drew closer the individuals of the two nations ; Roman 
manners prevailed everywhere, and the larger cities had 
their public baths, their circuses, their amphitheatres, and 
gladiatorial shows. In less than two centuries, schools of 
rhetoric and grammar had sprung up almost everywhere 

1 M)? Set '"Pto/xaiov etvcu rbv fi^j /col tV 5id\€^iu <r<p5iv iiriffrdfievoy. — Dion 
Cassius, LX, xvii. 

2 Splendidum virum, Grseciaeque provincial principem, verum latini sermo- 
nis ignarum, non modo albo judicum erasit, sed etiam in peregrinitatem rede- 
git. — Suetonius, Claud., c. xvi, 5. 

* Me legit ibi senior, juvenisque, puerque, 

Et coram tetrico casta puella viro. — Martial, VII, Epig. 87. 

4 Pliny, Ep., ix, 2. 

5 OuSe Bapfidpous ert 6vras y a\\a /xeraKeiixeuovs rb ir\4ov els rbu rwv 'Pwficuwv 
rinrov, Kal t% f\(i>rr% kolL tois fiiois. — Strab., IV. The word barbarian was ap- 
plied by the Egyptians, and afterward by the Greeks and Romans, to all who 
did not speak their language. 



462 APPENDIX. 

in Gaul, and those of Autun, Lyons, Treves, Reims, Be- 
sancon, Poitiers, Narbonne, Marseilles, and Toulouse be- 
came renowned throughout the land. Henceforth the 
Gauls cultivated Latin literature with an ardor and activ- 
ity at that time unequaled in any portion of the Western 
Empire. They were particularly distinguished by an un- 
bounded enthusiasm for the disputes of the forum. Juve- 
nal called Gaul "the nurse for lawyers," 1 and such was 
the high character of the Gallic academies, that at one 
time the emperors, either from policy or from preference, 
sent their sons there for education. Thus Crispus, a son of 
Constantine, and Gratianus, made their studies at Treves ; 
Dalmatius and Annibalianus, grandsons of Constantius 
Chlorus, followed a course of eloquence at Toulouse. 
In all the cities of Roman Gaul the education of youth 
was entrusted to masters of grammar and rhetoric, who 
were elected by the magistrates, maintained at the public 
expense, and distinguished by many lucrative and honor- 
able privileges. 2 There are still extant many imperial 
edicts relating to these public seminaries, in which privi- 
leges are conferred upon the teachers, and regulations 
laid down as to the manner in which they were to be 
appointed, the salaries they were to receive, and the 
branches of learning they were to teach. They were held 
in high respect, and enjoyed many of the immunities and 
privileges afterward conferred on the clergy. Several of 
the Gallic professors, not satisfied with their high renown 
as teachers, aimed at the still higher distinction of Latin 
authors, and quite a number among them, such as Petro- 
nius, Lactantius, Ausonius, Sidonius Apollinaris, Corne- 
lius Gallus, Trogus-Pompeius, and Sulpicius Severus 
attained a well-deserved celebrity. 3 

But while Latin had made such wonderful progress 
among the upper classes in the large cities and the main 
centers of civilization, it was not so with the working- 

1 Nutricula causidicorum. — Juvenal, Sat., vii, 147. 

2 To this Juvenal (xv. no) refers in the following lines: 

Nunc totus Graias, nostrasque habet orbis Athenas, 
Gallia causidicos docuit facunda Britannos, 
De conducendo loquitur jam rhetore Thule. 

3 Claudianus could nctf find anything more flattering for the Emperor Ho- 
norious than calling him, attended upon by the learned men of Gaul and the 
Roman Senate — 

" Te Gallia doctis 

Civibus, et toto stipavit Roma Senatu. 
Claud., de IV, Consulatu Honorii Augttst. Panegyris, vers. 582. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 463 

classes, and especially not with the country people, who 
at first had not the same inducements to learn the lan- 
guage, nor the same facilities for its acquisition. Not 
having the advantage of teachers or schools, they only 
gradually, generation after generation, gained what they 
could, partly from contact with the Roman legions, by 
the natural affinity which always draws the people to the 
soldiers, partly from necessity in their daily dealings with 
Roman tradesmen and shop-keepers. In remote dis- 
tricts it was learned second-hand from other Celts, re- 
turned from the service perhaps, or settling in their 
native village after having made some money among 
Latin-speaking people, where they had learned enough of 
the language to affect a superiority, or to make them- 
selves useful as interpreters among their less favored 
friends and relatives. One may easily imagine the thou- 
sand various ways in which the overwhelming influence 
of Roman civilization caused the diffusion of its language 
among the Celtic population. 

In the same manner as honey varies in color and flavor, 
according to the nature of the flowers from which it is 
collected and the breed of the bees that elaborated it, so 
the Latin spoken in Gaul approached more or less to the 
common Latin of Italy according to the location, dialect, 
and degree of instruction of the people who used it. Even 
in those centers where the educated prided themselves on 
their correct use of the Roman language, the people clung 
for a long time to their ancient Celtic vernacular. In the 
latter part of the second century Saint Irenseus, Bishop of 
Lyons, was still obliged to speak the Celtic language in 
order to be understood by the people among whom he 
preached the Gospel. 1 In the third century a Druidess, 
wishing to address some prophetic words to Alexander 
Severus, did so in Celtic, probably knowing no other lan- 
guage. 2 It was only in the course of the fourth century 
that Latin began to be of general use, badly pronounced, 
of course, 3 and considerably mixed with Celtic, which for 

1 Orationis artem non exquires k nobis qui apud Celtas commoramur, et in 
barbarum sermonem plerumque avocamur. — Saint Irenaeus, Proem, libri adver- 
sus hares. 

2 Mulier druias eunti (Alexandra Severd) exclamavit gallico sermone : " Va- 
das, nee victoriam speres, nee militi tuo credas." — ^Elius Lampridis, Collect, 
script, lat. veter., ii, p. 354. 

3 Claudianus said in the fourth century : " Video enim os romanum non 
modo negligentiae sed pudori esse Romanis, grammaticam uti quandam barba- 
ram barbarismi et solcecismi pugno et calce propelli." — Miscellanea, iii, p. 27. 



464 APPENDIX. 

a long time after remained the home speech of the poor 
and the lowly, especially in the mountainous districts, and 
such as were remote from the main centers of the popula- 
tion and from the principal ways of communication that 
were opened by the Romans. Thus we find in the fifth 
century the Celtic language still lingering on the mount- 
ains of Auvergne, as appears from a letter of Sidonius 
Apollinaris, bishop of Clermont, who congratulates Ecdice 
that, thanks to his efforts, the nobility of that district had 
got rid at last of their coarse Celtic speech; 1 Saint Je- 
rome informs us that some of the language he heard in 
Treves differed but little from that of the Gauls in Gala- 
tia ; and Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, wishing to com- 
pliment Bertechram on the excellence of his Latin poetry, 
predicts that his verses would some day become popular 
even among the lower classes ; 2 from all of which we may 
infer that a good deal of Celtic was still current among 
the people at that advanced period. Still, in the course 
of that century the Celtic idiom as a vernacular gradually 
died out, except in Brittany, the ancient Armorica, where 
it is spoken at the present day. 

What most powerfully contributed to spread the Latin 
language among the masses was the establishment of 
Christianity throughout Gaul. The church had adopt- 
ed it as the leading literary language in the West, where 
it became the natural exponent of the new faith, and the 
most efficacious means to secure its propagation. Thus 
Christian Rome completed, by the diffusion of its doc- 
trines, what pagan Rome had commenced by its laws, its 
institutions, and the powerful influence of its literature 
and its civilization. 

It would be difficult to assign the exact time when 
Latin had entirely displaced the original Celtic, though 
it is generally assumed that by the end of the fifth cent- 
ury the change was accomplished. Few there were who 
could not say something in Latin, partly from pride and 
vanity, which always leads the people to imitate those 
whom they consider their betters ; but more generally 
from necessity, in their endeavors to obtain employment 
from the nobles and the rich, who regarded the Celtic 

1 Quod sermonis celtici squamam depositura nobilitas, nunc oratorio stylo, 
nunc etiam camaenalibus modis imbuebatur. — Sid. Apollin., lib. iii, Epist. 3. 
2 Per loca, per populos, per compita cuncta videres 
Currere versiculos, plebe favente, tuos. 

Venant. Fortunati opera> p. 89. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 465 

idiom with disdain, and knew no other language than that 
which became a Roman citizen. 

This universality of the Latin tongue, however, which 
caused so much pride to the Romans, 1 led that language 
directly to its ruin. When an idiom becomes the means 
of communication between so many diverse tribes, so 
many opposite races, it loses in perfection what it gains in 
extent. It does not penetrate the unintelligent masses, 
and still it suffers from their influence ; it wears out in 
this perpetual friction, and does not polish what it touch- 
es. We may therefore suppose that, outside the more 
cultivated classes, the Latin, as spoken in Gaul, was much 
affected by the contact not only with the native language, 
but also with that of the colonists and Roman soldiers 
themselves, which was far from being refined, and, accord- 
ing to the authors of the period, who disdainfully called it 
sermo plebeius, rusticus, militaris sermo, castrense verbo, full 
of barbarisms. This popular Latin was unwritten, and 
we might have remained ignorant of its existence had 
not the Roman grammarians revealed it to us by exhort- 
ing their students to avoid, as low and trivial, certain ex- 
pressions, which they told them were of vulgar use. 
Cassiodorus informs us that the feigned combats of gladi- 
ators and the exercise drill of the army were called bata- 
lia? whereas pugna was the literary term ; pugna has dis- 
appeared and batalia has survived in the French bataille. 
So, "to strike" is verberare in literary Latin, but the 
popular Latin said batuere, whence the French battre. 
The words cheval, semaine, aider, doubter, were in the 
classical Latin equus, hebdomas, juvare, duplicare ; in the 
popular language, caballus, septimana, adjutare, duplare ; 
a marked difference, which made the Popular Latin a 
language within a language, but not the less Latin. The 
Literary Latin of Gaul was undoubtedly as elegant and 
refined as that of Rome itself; 3 but there, as elsewhere, it 

1 It was not only in Gaul, but also in Spain, in Illiria, in the north of Afri- 
ca, and more or less everywhere in all the Roman dependencies, that Latin be- 
came the prevalent language. Saint Augustine tells us that, preaching to the 
people of Hippone in Africa, on the site of Carthage, he was obliged to trans- 
late a Punic proverb into Latin : Proverbium notum est punicum, quod quidem 
latine vobis dicam, quia punice non omnes nostis ; punicum aute?n proverbium est 
antiquum : nummum quaerit pestilentia, duos illi da, et ducat se. — S. Aug., ser- 
mon 168, De verbo s apostol. 

2 Quae vulgo batalia dicuntur, exercitationes gladiatorum vel militum sig- 
nificant. — Cassiodorus, Adamant., p. 2,300. 

3 Ut ubertatem gallici nitoremque sermonis gravitas romana condiret.— 
Saint Jerome, epistola XCV, ad Rust. 



466 APPENDIX. 

was confined to the use of the upper classes, the orators 
and poets, more select, but less numerous than the people, 
by whose language it was absorbed after the classical dia- 
lect had disappeared as a colloquial idiom. 

The progress of the Popular Latin, henceforth the na- 
tional language of Gaul, did not remain long undisturbed. 
Even before Caesar's time, some German tribes, as we 
have seen, had commenced to find their way on Gallic 
soil, and, as during the following centuries they gradually 
increased in numbers and pretensions, it was deemed un- 
safe to allow this kind of immigration to go on without 
restriction. To protect Northern Gaul against invasion, 
the Romans garrisoned their frontiers with a chain of 
legions or military colonies, as was their custom. When, 
however, these veterans were no longer able to defend 
the sanctity of Roman territory, the Romans employed 
an expedient, which for a century or more kept the in- 
vaders at bay, or at least modified the nature of their 
encroachments. It was determined to let the barbarians 
settle in the north of Gaul, in order to attach them to the 
empire, and to use them as a new and durable barrier 
against all further invasions. These tribes went by the 
name of Lceti — probably only the Latin way of pronounc- 
ing the German word leute — and formed armed colonies ; 
they recognized the nominal sovereignty of the emperors, 
and enjoyed lands granted them under a kind of military 
tenure. At the same time the emperors hired some 
Franks, Burgundians, and Visigoths to fill up the blanks 
in their legions. 

The first consequence was an ever-increasing intro- 
duction of Teutonic words into the common Latin. These, 
as may be supposed, are chiefly connected with warfare. 
Vegetius tells us that the Roman soldiers began to give 
the name of burgus 1 to a small fortified work. This is the 
old word burg, which has survived in French and all Teu- 
tonic idioms. Thus, nearly a century before Clovis, cer- 
tain German terms had already found their way into the 
Gallo-Roman language ; the mixed character of the new 
national idiom favored their admission, and many foreign 
words of Teutonic origin slipped in unperceived among 
those who had occasion for their use. 

Meanwhile the Roman empire was sinking beneath 
the weight of its own grandeur ; the want of moral ear- 

1 Castellum parvum quod burgum vocant. — Vegetius, De re militari, iv, 60. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 467 

nestness, the extinction of the old families, the inequalities 
of wealth, the decrease of the numbers of free citizens, the 
corrupting effects of slavery, the dissoluteness of those 
who ought by their example to have ennobled the supreme 
power, the venality of the law courts, were gradually lead- 
ing the empire to its dissolution ; and the nations of the 
north, profiting by its weakness, burst the barriers upon 
all sides. The Gallo-Romans, abandoned by the emperors 
who, harassed in every quarter, ordered them " to defend 
themselves," were overcome, as in Britain, for want of 
military experience, and by the middle of the fifth cent- 
ury the Germanic league, whose members for two centu- 
ries had borne the name of Franks, 1 descending in several 
bands from the mouths of the Rhine and the Maas, had 
taken possession of all the northern part of Gaul. Two 
other nations of Teutonic race had already thoroughly 
invaded and fixed their abode in the provinces of the 
south, between the Loire and the two seas. The western 
Goths or Visigoths 2 occupied the country west of the 
Rhone; the Burgundians 3 that to the east. The estab- 
lishment of the latter two barbarous nations had not taken 
place without violence and ravage ; they had usurped a 
portion of the possessions of each native family ; but the 
love of repose, when wealth was once acquired, and a 
certain spirit of justice, which distinguished them among 
all other German tribes, had speedily softened their man- 
ners ; they contracted relationships with the conquered, 
whom their laws treated with impartiality, and they grad- 
ually came to be regarded by them as simply friends and 

1 It is a popular notion that the word Frank means " free, open, candid ; a 
free man " ; this is not, however, its original meaning, though in a secondary 
sense the word has borne these significations. In the Teutonic languages, 
frank, frak, frek, frech, vrek, vrang, mean " bold, warlike, intrepid." Ethnical 
names, in addition to their primitive meaning, are often used as expressive of 
certain qualities, whether the use is complimentary or not. Assassin, gascon, 
vandal, Goth, are attributive words in French as well as English ; the word 
" slave," esclave, has been derived from the low estate of the Sclavonians. To 
designate civil liberty there was, in the language of France during the ninth 
and tenth centuries, no other word for it than that of frankise or franchise, a 
dialectic difference of pronunciation ; and when we remember how the soldier- 
like fidelity, and the self-reliant courage of the Franks enabled them with ease 
to subjugate the civilized but effeminate inhabitants of northern Gaul, we can 
understand how the name of a rude German tribe has come to denote the frank, 
bold, open, manly character of a soldier and a freeman, and the word franchise 
to denote the possession of the full civil rights of the conquering race. (See 
page 76.) 

2 West-Gothen, in Latin Visigothi. 

3 Burg-hunds, dwellers in burghs or fortified towns ; in Latin Burgun- 
diones. 



468 APPENDIX. 

neighbors. The Goths, for the most part, adopted the Ro- 
man manners, which they found generally in use among 
the civilized inhabitants of Gaul ; their laws were, in great 
measure, mere extracts from the imperial code ; they 
prided themselves on a taste for the arts, and affected the 
polished elegance of Rome. 1 The Franks, on the con- 
trary, filled the north of Gaul with terror and devasta- 
tion ; strangers to the manners and arts of the Roman 
cities and colonies, they ravaged them with indifference, 
and even with a sort of pleasure. They being pagans, no 
religious sympathy tempered their savage humor. Spar- 
ing neither sex nor age, destroying churches as readily as 
dwelling-houses, they gradually advanced toward the 
south, invading the whole extent of Gaul; while the 
Goths and Burgundians, impelled by a similar ambition, 
but with less barbarous manners, sometimes at peace with 
each other, but more often at war, tried to make progress 
in the opposite direction. In the weak condition of the 
central provinces, which still formed part, though only in 
name, of the Roman empire, with which they were utter- 
ly disgusted, and which, in the words of an ancient Gaul- 
ish poet, made them feel the weight of its shadow, 3 there 
was reason to suppose that the inhabitants of these prov- 
inces, incapable of resisting the conquering nations, who 
pressed upon them on three sides, would come to terms 
with the least ferocious ; in a word, that the whole of Gaul 
would submit either to the Goths or to the Burgundians, 
Christians like themselves, to escape the grasp of the 
Franks ; but fate had decided otherwise. 

The portion of the Gaulic territory which in the latter 
part of the fifth century was occupied by the Franks ex- 
tended from the Rhine to the Somme, and the tribe most 
advanced into the west and south, was that of the Mero- 
wings or children of Merowig, 3 so called from the name 
of one of their ancient chiefs, renowned for his bravery, 

1 Burgundiones ..... blande, mansuete, innocenterque vivunt, non quasi 
cum subjectis Gallis, sed vere cum fratribus Christianis. — Paulus Orosius, apud 
Script, rer. gallic, et francic. 

2 Portavimus umbram imperii. — Sidon. Apoll., Carmina. 

3 Merovicus .... a quo Franci et prius Merovinci vocati sunt, propter 
utilitatem videlicet et prudentiam illius, in tantam venerationem apud Francos 
est habitus, ut quasi communis pater ab omnibus coleretur. — Roriconis Gest. 
Fmnc. apud Scriptores, etc., iii, 4. Primum regem traduntur habuisse Mero- 
veum, ob cujus potentes facta et mirificos triumphos, intermisso Sicambrorum 
vocabulo, Merovingi dicti sunt. — Hariulfi Chronicon Centulense. In the Frank- 
ish language, Merowings j the termination ing indicating descent. (Compare 
pages 191, 192, and 304.) 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 469 

and respected by the whole tribe as a common an- 
cestor. 

At the head of the children of Merowig was a young 
man named Hlodowig or Clovis, who combined with the 
warlike ardor of his predecessors a greater degree of re- 
flection and skill. The bishops of that portion of Gaul 
which was still subject to the empire entered, probably as 
a matter of prudence and of precaution for the future, 
into relation with this formidable neighbor, sending him 
frequent messages, replete with flattering expressions. 
Many of his envoys even visited him in his camp, which 
in their Roman politeness they dignified with the name of 
Aula Regia, or royal court. The king of the Franks was 
at first very insensible to their adulation, which in no 
way kept him from pillaging the churches and the treas- 
ures of the clergy ; but a precious vase, taken by his men 
from the Cathedral of Reims, placed the barbarian chief 
in relations of interest, and ere long of friendship, with a 
prelate more able or more successful than the rest. This 
was Remigius or Remi, bishop of Reims, under whose 
skillful management events took the proper form to bring 
about the grand plan of the high Gaulish clergy. First, 
by a change too fortunate to have been wholly fortuitous, 
the king, whom they desired to convert to the Roman 
faith, married the only orthodox Catholic princess then 
existing among the Teutonic families ; and " the love of 
the faithful wife," as the historians of the time express it, 
gradually softened the heart of the infidel husband. 1 In 
a battle with some Germans who sought to follow the 
Franks into Gaul, and to conquer a part thereof for them- 
selves, Hlodowig, whose soldiers were giving way, in- 
voked the god of Clothilda (such was the name of his 
wife), and promised to believe in him if he conquered. 
He conquered, and kept his word. 

The example of the chief, the presents of Clothilda 
and the bishops, and perhaps the charm of novelty, which 
too often was the motive of these heathens in such mat- 
ters, brought about the conversion of a number of Frank 
warriors, as many, indeed, say the historians, as three 
thousand. 2 The baptism took place at Reims, and all the 
splendor that could still be furnished by Roman art, 
which was soon to perish in Gaul, was displayed in pro- 

1 Fidelis infideli conjuncta viro. — Aimonii chronicon, lib. xiv. 

9 De exercitu vero ejus baptizati sunt amplius tria millia — Greg. Turr. 



470 APPENDIX. 

fusion to adorn this triumph of the Christian faith. From 
the time that King Hlodowig was declared a son of the 
Roman church, his conquests spread in Gaul almost with- 
out effusion of blood. All the cities of the northwest, to 
the Loire and to the territory of the Bretons, opened 
their gates to his soldiers, and their garrisons passed over 
to the service of the Frankish king. Goths and Burgun- 
dians had to yield to his power one after the other, and 
ere long the Frankish dominion extended from the Rhine 
to the Pyrenees. 

Before their invasion of Gaul the Franks formed a 
league, composed of several tribes occupying the terri- 
tory bounded by the Weser, the Main, the Rhine, and the 
North Sea. Within this zone, Franks, Dutch, Flemish, 
Frisians, Saxons, etc., were all one and the same race of 
people. Their laws, religion, and general character dif- 
fered but little ; and their language, though of the same 
stock and in the main alike, included as many dialects as 
there were confederate tribes. In Gaul, however, all the 
dialects of the invaders seem to have merged into two 
principal ones — the Salian and Ripuarian Franks in the 
north, and the Ne-Ostrian or Neustrian in the west, speak- 
ing the ancient Dutch and Flemish, which differed but 
little, and the Ostrasian Franks, in the eastern part of 
Gaul, speaking old High German, having come originally 
from Germany, whence their numbers were constantly 
increasing. In either of these districts Latin was well- 
nigh crowded out, together with the native population, 
most of whom, to escape murder or bondage, fled before 
the conquering enemy. Different it was in Neustria, 
however, at least in that portion which extends from the 
Scarpe to the Loire and from the Maas to the ocean, and 
which was the largest and most populous part. The Sa- 
lian Franks, who occupied this country, were the farthest 
removed from the Rhine, and had but little intercourse 
with the Germanic tribes that dwelt on the other side 
of the river, while they mingled freely with the Gallo- 
Roman people, who were vastly superior in number, as 
well as in civilization and intellectual culture of every 
kind. Instead of being driven out, the latter were left in 
possession of a portion of their goods and of their civil 
rights. The kings of these Franks treated with particular 
favor the Christian clergy, as a matter of policy, perhaps, 
to secure their support with the people, and to separate 
their cause from that of the Germans beyond the Rhine, 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



471 



whose invasions they dreaded as much as did the Gallo- 
Romans themselves. This conciliatory policy brought 
conqueror and conquered closer together, and, yielding 
to the irresistible influence of a higher civilization, the 
former gradually fell in with the manners and habits, and 
even the language of their new subjects. 

Many causes led to this result. In the first place, the nu- 
meral paucity of the invaders — a few bands of armed men, 
fierce warriors, it is true, but scarcely more than twelve 
thousand in all, in the midst of six million of Gallo-Romans. 
Then, again, their language was not exactly one, as we 
have seen, each tribe having its own dialect — Frankish, 
Burgundian, Gothic, in all their divisions and subdivis- 
ions ; and though these were all of the same stock, and 
more or less alike, it may have been found convenient, for 
the purpose of international, and to some extent even of 
local intercourse, to make use of a more cultivated idiom. 
The conquest of Gaul, moreover, was not systematic and 
simultaneous. At first only small bands of armed emi- 
grants came in from time to time, and gradually paved 
the way for the great invasions of Clovis in the fifth cent- 
ury ; and all these were thoroughly assimilated with the 
Gallo-Roman population in interest and language by the 
time of the Carlovingian invasion, which took place three 
centuries later. Then, among the first invaders there 
were probably many who had served in the Roman 
legions, and therefore were familiar with the language as 
well as with the mode of warfare of the Romans. Al- 
though all these invasions, large and small, partook of the 
nature of armed immigrations, it is not likely that many 
of the invaders were married men, and brought their 
wives with them in the first instance ; and as most of the 
foreign warriors, after marrying Gallo-Roman women, 
became farmers and worked in the field when war did not 
call them to the standard of their chief, they left to their 
wives the care of their children, who thus naturally learned 
to speak their mother's tongue. Add to this the influence 
of the clergy, after their conversion to Christianity, and 
it becomes evident that a few thousand men, in the midst 
of a numerous population, could not but fall into the use 
of the language which they heard spoken on all sides. 

In viewing the events, and the terrible mode of war- 
fare of some of these northern tribes upon the peaceable 
inhabitants of Gaul, to possess themselves of their rich 
and cultivated lands, we are apt to exaggerate the wicked- 



4/2 APPENDIX. 

ness of their purposes, and to allow ourselves to be de- 
ceived by the name of barbarian, which the Romans gave 
indiscriminately to all uncivilized or semi-civilized nations, 
and which is now current in its most contemptuous mean- 
ing only. But these barbarians must have been possessed 
of remarkable qualities to cope successfully with the Ro- 
man power, even when in its decline, to wrest from it one 
of its richest provinces, and hold their sway over a nu- 
merous population, whose intellectual superiority was 
acknowledged by the Romans themselves. Nor does the 
language of these tribes, in its varied combinations, its 
remote origin, and extensive influences, exhibit such a low 
condition as would imply the epithet disdainfully be- 
stowed by imperial Rome on Huns and Franks alike. 
The poetry of the latter, on the contrary, gives us quite a 
different idea of their intellectual character. It is true, 
this poetry dates from after the invasion ; but from the 
testimony of Tacitus, Jornandes, Ammianus Marcellinus, 
and from the fragment of a Frankish epopee lately dis- 
covered, it would seem that these Teutonic tribes must 
have had something like the Eddas, the Sagas, or the 
Nibelungen, before setting foot on Roman soil. Their 
war songs were impetuous and terrible, like the shocjt of 
their armies. Conquered, they sang their song of death 
in the midst of tortures; conquerors, they celebrated 
their successes by poetical recitals. If this poetry had 
not the noble and harmonious beauty, the majestic regu- 
larity of Greek odes, it exhibited sometimes a grandeur 
and simplicity that would have been worthy of Homer. 
Of course they stood below the Romans in point of ele- 
gance and social refinement ; but they had brought with 
them what was better than effete Roman civilization — the 
spirit, at least, and the elementary forms of a new system 
of political arrangement, founded upon larger and juster 
views of human rights and duties, and, in its final devel- 
opment, more favorable to the general security of person 
and property, and to the promotion of all the other ends 
of good government and social compact, than any with 
which antiquity had been acquainted. They had brought 
with them from their forests principles of liberty and 
equality, of obedience to law and authority, of voluntary 
alliance of man to man, inviolate fidelity to the sworn 
oath, respectful deference to woman, protection to the 
weak from the strong — in a word, the worship and even 
the superstition of that kind of honor which afterward 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 473 

we find in chivalry, and of which courage and scorn of 
meanness were the foundation. 

All this, as much as the strength of their armies, 
secured their successes in Gaul, where the people began 
to look upon them as their deliverers from military tyranny 
and corrupt Roman officials. " In all the cities and villa- 
ges," says Salvianus, 1 a priest of Marseilles who witnessed 
the first invasions, " there are as many tyrants as there 
are officers of the government ; they devour the bowels 
of the citizens and their widows and orphans ; public bur- 
dens are made the means of private plunder ; the collec- 
tion of the national revenue is made the instrument of 
individual peculation ; none are safe from the devasta- 
tions of these insatiable robbers. The public taxation is 
unequally imposed and arbitrarily levied ; hence many 
desert their farms and dwellings to escape the violence of 
the exactors. There is but one wish among all Romans : 
that they may dwell under the barbarian government. 
Thus our brethren not only refuse to leave these nations, 
but they flee from us to them. Can we then wonder that 
the Goths are not conquered by us, when the people 
would rather become Goths with them than remain Ro- 
mans with us? The Roman cities are full of the most 
dissolute luxury, and the foulest vices and debauchery. 
In this state of evil the Goths and Vandals, like a torrent, 
overran the Roman empire, and settled themselves in its 
cities and towns. Their speedy corruption was appre- 
hended in the midst of a population thus abandoned ; but 
to the astonishment of all, instead of degenerating into 
the universal depravity, they became its moral reformers. 
The luxuries and vices around them excited their disgust 
and abhorrence. Their own native customs were so mod- 
est, that, instead of imitating, they despised and punished, 
with all their fierce severity, the impurities they witnessed. 
They made adultery a capital crime, and so sternly pun- 
ished personal debauchery, that a great moral change 
took place in all the provinces they conquered." 

But while they waged war on Roman villainy and 
corruption, they also knew how to avail themselves of the 
advantages of an advanced civilization, and such was their 
progress in the language of the conquered that, in less 
than a century after the first invasion, Fortunatus, bishop 
of Poitiers, had already occasion to compliment Haribert, 

1 Salvianus, de Gubematione Dei ; Patrologice, vol. v. 
32 



474 APPENDIX. 

king of Paris, on the great success of his efforts. He may 
have possibly used some poetical exaggerations in extoll- 
ing the proficiency of this monarch in Latin as well as in 
his vernacular language; 1 but even so, it evinces a con- 
siderable amount of culture among the foreign princes. 
The same poet, undoubtedly also in the way of encourage- 
ment, has some words of praise for Chilperic, 2 who had 
written a work in prose on the Trinity and two books of 
poetry ; but Gregory of Tours, more outspoken, and less 
given to flattery, condemns his theology as heretical, and 
his poetry as transgressing all the rules of Latin versifi- 
cation. 3 

If, however, this Frankish king, in spite of his claims 
to authorship was not much of a Latinist, we may readily 
imagine what must have been the bulk of his nation. The 
Franks had kept up in Gaul, like the Saxons in England, 
their love for independence, and they preferred the free- 
dom of the open country to the restraints of city life. 4 
They generally dwelt near the forests, in clusters of 
houses, which they called Jiam? Living the life of farm- 
ers, and given to hunting, fishing, gaming, and good cheer 
in general, rather than to study, all they ever knew of any 
language not their own was from the Gallo-Roman coun- 
try folks, among whom they lived and with whom they 

1 Cum sis progenitus clara de gente Sygamber (Sicamber), 

Floret in eloquio lingua latina tuo ; 

Qualis es in propria docto sermone loquela : 

Qui nos Romanos vincis in eloquio. 

Fortunat. lib. vi, carm. 4. 
8 Discernens varias sub nullo interprete voces, 
Et generum linguas unica lingua refert. 

Fortunat. lib. ix, Ad Chilpericum regent. 

3 Confectique duos libros, quasi Sedulium meditatus, quorum versiculi de- 
biles nullis pedibus subsistere possunt, in quibus, dum non intelligebat pro 
longis syllabas breves posuit, et pro brevibus longas statuebat. — Greg. Turr. vi, 
c. xlvi. 

4 This characteristic of the Teutonic race did not escape the acute obser- 
vation of Tacitus. Colunt discreti ac diversi, ut fons, ut campus, ut nemus pla- 
cuit. Vicos locant, non in nostrum morem connexis et cohserentibus aedificiis : 
suam quisque domum spatio circumdat. Germania, § 16. See pages 101-105. 

5 Clovis granted to Saint Remy some land with a house on it, and called it 
biscofesheim. " Quas Ludovicus .... Biscofesheim sua lingua vocatas mihi 
tradidit." — Duchesne, Histor. Franc, script., t. ii, p. 385. From ham has come 
the diminutive hamel, afterward hameau. The word is still found in the name 
of many cities and villages in Germany and England, as : Oppenheim, Papen- 
heim, Hamburg, Buckingham, Nottingham, Walsingham, etc., see page 193. 
In France, especially in Picardy, many localities bear the name of Ham, Han, 
Hames, Hamel, Hamelet ; many others are composed of the word ham and the 
name of some person, as: Grignan (formerly Greinhanum) ; Taulignan (Tau- 
linhanum) ; S/rignan {Serinhanum), etc. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



475 



were in daily intercourse. From them they learned a 
sort of Latin mixed with Celtic, which in their turn they 
further corrupted by an additional mixture of ancient 
Dutch and Flemish — the whole forming a jargon which 
varied in every locality, and which men of culture in 
the cities called lingua romana rustica, " peasant Latin." 

This rustic Latin, which originated in Neustria as a 
means of communication between the two races, spread 
from there to other parts in the course of the sixth cent- 
ury, and in the beginning of the seventh it had become 
the general language of almost the entire nation. Its dif- 
fusion had been favored by the complete abandonment of 
all studies among the upper classes, and an utter indiffer- 
ence of all in matters of language and literature. 1 The 
clergy themselves greatly contributed to this result, for 
many of them knew this vulgar Latin only, and what is 
more, all were obliged to know it in order to be under- 
stood by the people. Thus, while the cultivated classes, 
few as they were, affected to despise the half-formed jar- 
gon, the Church, which had never been afraid of using 
any vulgar speech wherever it could find hearers, quickly 
took in its whole importance, and, instead of resisting it 
and clinging to literary Latin, set herself to make a skill- 
ful use of the new movement. Even as early as the lat- 
ter part of the fifth century, Saint Prosper advised the 
use of rustic Latin to the priests of his time. 2 In the 
sixth and seventh centuries, missionaries sent from Rome 

1 Philosophantem rhetorum intelligunt pauci, loquentem rusticum multi. — 
Greg. Turr., Hist. Eccles. Franc, lib. v. The style of this very Gregory of 
Tours must have been quite rustic, too, from what he says of it himself: 

" Sed timeo ne cum scribere coepero, quia sum sine litteris rhetoricis et 
arte grammatica, dicat mihi aliquis : Ausu rustico et idiota, ut quid nomem 
tuum inter scriptores indi sestimas ? Aut opus hoc a peritis accipi putas cui 
ingenium artis non suppeditat, nee ulla litterarum scientia subministrat ! Qui 
nullum argumentum utile in litteris habes, qui nomina discernere nescis ; sepius 
pro masculinis feminea, pro femineis neutra et pro neutris masculina, commu- 
tas ; qui ipsas quoque prsepositiones quas nobilium dictatorum observari sanxit 
auctoritas, loco debito plerumque non locas ; nam pro ablativis accusativa, et 
rursum pro accusativis ablativa ponis." — Greg. Turr., De gloria confessorum, 
prsefatio. 

2 Tarn simplex et apertus, etiam minus latinus, disciplinatus tamen et gra- 
vit debet esse sermo pontificis, ut ab intelligentia sui nullos, quamvis imperitos, 
excludat ; sed in omnium audientium pectus cum quadam delectatione descen- 
dat. Alia enim est ratio declamatorum, et alia debet esse doctorum. Illi elu- 
cubratse orationis pompam totis facundise viribus concupiscunt, illi rebus inani- 
bus pretiosa verborum indicant ornamenta ; isti veracibus sententiis ornant et 
commendant verba simplicia ; illi affectant suorum sensuum deformitatem tan- 
quam velamine quodam phalerati sermonis abscondere ; isti eloquiorum sacrorum 
rusticitatem pretiosis sensibus venustare. — De vita co7itemp., lib. i, cap. xxiii. 



476 APPENDIX. 

had first to learn this language, " seeing that the people 
no longer understood Latin." In 813 the Council of Tours 
prescribed that " every bishop should order the priests in 
his diocese to expound the Scriptures in rustic Latin, and 
preachers to use the same in their pulpits." After this 
Council of Tours, those of Rheims in the same year, of 
Strasburg in 842, of Mayence in 845, and of Aries in 851, 
renewed the order, showing that, in the eyes of the Church, 
the Latin, as a spoken language in Gaul, was dead and 
gone from among the people. Even as early as the sev- 
enth century we find the rustic Latin employed in popu- 
lar songs, several fragments of which have been preserved, 
among others two stanzas of one celebrating the victory 
of Chlotaire II, in 662, over the Saxons, and which be- 
came so popular that it was used as a dancing tune by the 
women. 1 

At first the rustic Latin differed from good Latin es- 
pecially by the violation of grammatical rules, a vulgar 
pronunciation, and a ruthless admixture of Celtic and 
Teutonic words and turns of expression. But graver 
and more radical changes, to be explained later, gradually 
decomposed the language, so that by the end of the sev- 
enth century it became a new and distinct idiom, vastly 
differing from the Latin from which it had sprung, but in 
its further development always showing its parentage. It 
then took the name of Lingua Romana, from which comes 

1 Ex qua victoria carmen publicum juxta rusticitatem per omnium pcene 
volitabat ora ita canentium, feminseque choros inde plaudendo componebant : 
De Chlothario est canere, rege Francorum, 
Qui ivit pugnare in gentem Saxonum. 
Quam graviter provenisset missis Saxonum, 
Si non fuisset inclytus Faro de gente Burgundionum. 
Et in fine hujus carminis : 

Quando veniunt missi Saxonum in terrain Francorum 

Faro ubi erat princeps, , 

Instinctu Dei transeunt per urbem Meldorum, 

Ne interficiantur a rege Francorum. 

Mabillon, Acta sand, ordinis S. Bened., p. 617. 
Hallam quotes the following from Ravaillere, which is simple and quite 
pretty : 

At quid jubes, pusiole, 
Quare mandas, filiole, 
Carmen dulce me cantare? 
Cum si longe exul valde, 

Intra mare 
O cur jubes canere ? 
Intra seems to be used for trans. This specimen is more pleasing than 
most of the Latin verse of this period, and is more in the tone of the modern 
languages. It seems to represent the song of a female slave, and is perhaps as 
old as the destruction of the empire. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 477 

the adverb romanice in the phrase romanice loqui, and by 
contraction Romance, which now designates all the idioms, 
and dialects that resulted from the alteration of the Latin 
in Roman Gaul and elsewhere, under the influences to 
which we have referred. 1 

The first mention history makes of the new language 
by that name dates from the year 659, when Saint Mura- 
molinus is appointed bishop of Noyon, as the successor of 
Saint Elvi, " because," says his biographer, " he can speak 
both German and Romance." 2 It was indeed important 
in those times that a bishop should know both idioms, 
so as to be able to address the people of the two races 
intrusted to his pastoral care, in their own languages ; 
for, although at that time the Romance language was the 
speech of the entire Neustrian population, the Ostrasian 
kings and nobles kept much longer to the German of 
their fathers. Thus it was necessary for the upper clergy 
to be conversant with the vulgar idioms as well as with 
the Latin. 3 We read in the life of Saint Adalhard, abbot 
of Corbie in the year 750, that he preached in the popular 
tongue " with a sweet fluency " ; and his biographer's re- 
marks deserve especial notice by their establishing a clear 
distinction between the people's language, the German, 
and the Latin. " When Saint Adalhard spoke the common, 
that is the Romance tongue," he says, " you would have 
thought he knew no other ; if he spoke German, he was 
still more brilliant; but when he used Latin, he spoke 
even better than in either of the others." 4 

1 In addition to its original meaning, the word " romance " has also in 
English that of any tale of wild adventure in love and chivalry resembling those 
of the middle ages, and was first applied to translations from the French. In 
French, roman is simply a story of fiction, whereas romance corresponds to the 
English ballad, also of Provencal origin, from the Low Latin and Italian ballare, 
" to dance," the burden of such songs being originally often accompanied by 
dancing. 

2 Interea vir Dei Eligius, Noviomensis urbis episcopus, post multa parata 
miracula, in pace, plenus dierum, migravit ad Dominum (anno 659). Cujus in 
loco, fama bonorum operum, quia " prasvalebat non tantum in teutonica, sed 
etiam in romana lingua," Lotharii regis ad aures usque perveniente, prsefatus 
Mummolinus ad pastoralis regiminis curam subrogatus est episcopus. — Vita S. 
Mummolini, Ghesquier ; Acta Sanctorum Belgii selecta, t. iv, p. 403. 

8 In the seventeenth canon of the Council of Tours we read : " Easdem 
homilias quisque episcopus aperte transferre studeat in romanam rusticam lin- 
guam aut theotiscam, quo facilius cuncti possint intelligere quae dicuntur." — 
Labbe, Concilia, ix, p. 351. 

4 Qui si vulgari, id est romana lingua, loqueretur, omnium aliarum putares 
inscius (nee mirum, erat denique in omnibus liberaliter educatus), si vero teuto- 
nica, enitebat perfectius ; si latina, in nulla omnino absolutius. — Vie de saint 
Adalard, S. Gerard ; Acta sand, ordinis S. Benedicti, sceculo quarto, p. 355. 



478 APPENDIX. 

That he spoke Latin fluently seems to be well proved 
by the above testimony, but whether it was the classical 
Latin is less certain, to judge from the general corruption 
of the language, as shown by the chartularies and official 
documents of the time, in which instances like the follow- 
ing constantly occur: Episcopi de regna nostra; Donabo ad 
conjux ; In prcesentia de judices, and other similar forms in 
which terminations are mixed up in the wildest manner, 
cases ignored, and prepositions substituted. As this con- 
tagion of irregularity spread even in the Church, the 
Council of Narbonne, as far back as 589, had forbidden the 
conferring of orders on any one ignorant of literary Latin. 
Still, only a few years later, Pope Gregory the Great 
writes : " The rules as fixed by the grammarians seem to 
me little entitled to respect. ... I am not afraid of barbar- 
ous confusions, and my indignation is stirred at the notion 
of bending the words of heavenly oracle to the rules of 
Donatus. 1 Saint Augustine says : " We are not afraid of 
the grammarians' rod." Saint Jerome observes, " Once 
and for all, I know cubitnm to be neuter ; but the people 
make it masculine, and so do I." Such was the spirit of 
the time, and it prevailed, not only in Gaul, but through- 
out all Roman Europe, though not without its occasional 
inconveniences. In 752, for instance, we find that Pope 
Zachary had to be referred to in order to determine the 
validity of a baptism conferred in the following terms: 
Ego te babtizo in nomine patria et filia et spiritus sancti ; 
pretty bad Latin for a clergyman, even in those dark ages. 

Little is known of the Romance language as spoken by 
the middle of the eighth century. Some traces of it are 
left in the litanies read in the diocese of Soissons, 2 in some 

1 Unde et ipsam artem loquendi quam magisteria discipline exterioris in- 
sinuant, servare despexi. Nam sicut quoque hujus epistolae tenor enunciat, non 
metatismi collisionem fugio, non barbarismi confusionem devito, situs motusque 
prsepositionem, casusque servare contemno ; quia indignum vehementer existimo 
ut verba ccelestis oraculi restringam sub regulis Donati. — Sanct Greg. Gr. Com- 
ment. , lib. Job. 

2 After reciting the litanies, the choir invoked the blessings of heaven upon 
Pope Adrian I and the Emperor Charlemagne ; at every invocation the people 
present responded Tu lojuva, thus : 

Adriano summo pontifice et universale, papge vita, 

Redemptor mundi, Tu lo juva ; 

Sancte Petre, Tu lo juva. 

Karolo excellentissimo et a Deo coronato, magno et pacifico rege Francorum et 
Longobardorum, at patricis Romanorum, vita et victoria, 

Salvator mundi, Tu lo juva ; 

Sancte Johannis, Tu lo juva. 

Mabillon, Analecta Vetera. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



479 



scattered sentences of an ancient homily, 1 and especially 
in a manuscript, lately discovered in the library of Rhei- 
chenau, which contains a fragment of a glossary written 
about the year 768, and explains many of the' different 
words of the Vulgate in the current language of the period. 
A few of these words will give an idea of the importance 
of that document: 



CLASSICAL LATIN 


ROMANCE. 


CLASSICAL LATIN. 


ROMANCE. 


Galea 
Minae 
Sagma 
Tugurium 


Helmo 
Manatees 
Soma 
Cabanna 


Caementarii 
Singulariter 
Sindones 
Vespertiliones 


Macioni 
Solamente 
Linciolo 
Calves sorices. 



This interesting fragment is among the earliest speci- 
mens yet discovered of the popular language of the time. 
Though it was evidently compiled by a man of sufficient 
learning to understand the importance of such a glossary, 
and well versed in Latin, yet in spite of the Latin orthog- 
raphy of the Romance words then current, they show a 
very close resemblance to the corresponding words in 
modern French, in which helmo* has become heaume ; 
manatees? menaces ; soma? somme ; cabanna? cab ane ; macioni, 

1 Published by Bethman, Voyage historiqite dans le nord de la France. 

2 Helmo, helme, healme, from the old Dutch helm, " covering, protection " ; 
in English " helmet." 

E Saul de ses demeines vestemenz fist David revestir, le helme lascier e le 
halbert vestir. — Livre des Rots, p. 66. 

Ft induit Saul David vestimentis suis, et imposuit galeam ceream super caput 
ejus, et vestivit eum lorica. 

De ces espees enheldees d'or mer 
Fierent e caplent sur ces helmes d'acer ; 
Granz sunt les colps as helmes detrencher. 

Chans, de Rolland, st. eclxxxiv. 
Paien chevalchent par ces greignurs valees ; 
Halberes vestuz e tres bien fermeez, 
Healmes lacez e ceintes lur espees, 
Escuz al colz e lances adubees ; 
En un bruill, par sum les puis, remestrent. — Ibid., st. liv. 

3 Manatees, from the Latin minatice employed for mines in several passages 
of Plautus, among others in Miles gloriosus, act iv, sc. ii, v. 2. Cicero uses 
minatio with the same meaning, " menace, threat." In Norman French it be- 
came manace, and it even occurs in that form in Chaucer. " Now cometh 
manace, that is an open folie ; for he that ofte manaceth," etc. — Pers. Tale. De 
Ira, near the end. 

4 Sagma, quae corrupte dicitur salma, says Isidore of Seville. Salma be- 
comes sauma by regular contraction, and is found so written in eleventh century 
Latin text. Thus pronounced it became soma in Romance, meaning " a burden, 
a load." In Merovingian documents the substitution of o for au is general. 

5 Cabanna, originally capanna, found so in Isidore of Seville. Tugurium 
parva casa est ; hoc rustici capanna vocant. In Celtic caban, " a little house, a 
hut," is the diminutive of cab, " a booth made with rods set in the ground and 
tied at the top." 



4 80 APPENDIX. 

macons ; solamente, settlement ; linciolo> linceul ; and calves 
sorues, chauve-souris. 

After these fragments, which, interesting as they are, 
give us but little insight into the current language of the 
time, the first monument of real importance yet discov- 
ered of the Romance language is the oath which Louis 
the German took at Strasburg to his brother Charles the 
Bald, March, 842, after the battle of Fontanet. 1 These 
princes, having resolved to join their forces in order to 
resist the ambition of their brother, the Emperor Lothaire, 
met at Strasburg, each followed by a considerable army, 
and there, in the presence of their troops called in as wit- 
nesses and parties to the oath, they swore to lend each 
other support and mutual assistance. Louis the Ger- 
man addressed the French army of his brother in Romance, 
Charles read his oath in Teutonic to the soldiers of Louis, 
and both received of the troops their agreement in the 
same languages, respectively. The oath so sworn by 
Louis is expressly stated to have been in the Lingua 
Romana? and as from the context of the history it appears 
that the oath was couched in this language in order that 
it might be understood by the French subjects of Charles 
the Bald, we may consider this document as a perfect 
specimen of the character which the Romance language 
had assumed toward the middle of the ninth century. 
What enhances the value of this document is its being 
preserved in manuscript of the time, 8 and recorded by 
Nithard, a grandson of Charlemagne, in his " History of 
the Franks," written at the command of Charles the Bald ; 
and as he was the personal friend and political adviser of 
this monarch, it has been even surmised that it was he 
who framed the language of the oath so as to make it sat- 
isfactory to both the king and to all concerned. 

However this may be, certain it is that the language 
so recorded was the Romance as current at the time among 
the Neustrian people who spoke and understood no other. 
Still, as the oath was taken both in German and in Ro- 

1 In Latin Fontanettim, now Fontenay near Auxerre. 

2 Ergo xvi kalendse Marsii cum Ludhovicus et Karolus in civitate, quae olim 
Argentaria vocabatur, nunc autem Strazburg vulgo dicitur, et sacramenta quse 
subter notata sunt Ludhovicus romana, Karolus vero teudisca lingua, jurave- 
runt ; ac sic ante sacramenta circumfusam plebem, alter teudisca, alter romana 
lingua alloquuti sunt. — Nithardi Hist. ap. Sacr. Rer. Francic, vii, p. 26. 

3 The original manuscript is in the library of the Vatican in Rome. See 
plate opposite p. 600, where the language of the Oath is examined and 
explained. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 481 

mance, and as, moreover, both sovereigns are recorded, 
before taking the oath, to have harangued their people, 
each in his own idiom, it is evident that among the Os- 
trasian Franks the use of their original language was kept 
up much longer than elsewhere, and probably even gained 
ground, under Carlovingian rule, all along the Rhine 
where, diversely modified, remnants of it may still be found 
in the local patois of some rural districts. Thus, while the 
fusion of the two races was more or less complete, accord- 
ing to the various localities, and while the name of Franks 
had everywhere superseded that of Gauls or Gallo-Romans, 
there was still a difference of speech, marked enough 
throughout the entire ninth century, to make a distinction 
between Latin Franks and Teutonic Franks, 1 which dis- 
tinction, expressive as it was, not only of a difference of 
language but also of manners, customs, and interests, en- 
gendered feelings of antagonism, and often led to serious 
disturbances and even bloody encounters. Thus it is re- 
lated that on one occasion, when Charles the Simple, a 
grandson of Charles the Bald, had gone to meet Henry the 
Fowler on the banks of the Rhine, for a political confer- 
ence, some young men in the retinue of these princes were 
so disgusted at each other's language and accent that from 
taunts and sneers they came to open insults, which ended 
in a regular fight in which several were killed, among 
others Erlebald, Count of Castricum. 2 It seems that at 
all times there are people who hear something odd and 
comical in the sound of a foreign language, even when 
used on solemn occasions. So when Hrolf or Rollo, the 
first Duke of Normandy, on swearing fealty to Charles 
the Fat, declined to kiss the king's foot, unless he could 
lift it to his mouth, and expressed his determination with 
the words Bi Got, 3 all the company burst out laughing, 

1 Ejusdem Arnullfi tempore (anno 888) Gallorum populi elegerunt Odonem 
ducem sibi in regem. Hinc divisio facta est inter teutones Francos et latinos 
Francos. — Chronique anonyme, Recueil des historians de France, t. viii, p. 234. 

8 Germanorum Gallorumque juvenes linguarum idiomate offensi, ut eorum 
mos est, cum multa animositate maledictis sese lacessere cceperunt, consertique 
gladios exerunt, ac se adorti, lethaliter sauciant. In quo tumultu, cum ad litem 
sedandam Erlebaldus comes accederet, a furentibus occisus est. — Richeri hist., 
lib. iv. 

3 Hie non est dignatus pedem Caroli osculari, nisi ad os suum levaret. 
Cumque sui comites ilium ammonerent, ut pedem regis in acceptione tanti mu- 
neris oscularetur, linqua anglica respondit : Ne se bi Got ; quod interpretatur ; 
Ne per Deum. Rex vero et sui ilium deridentes, et sermonem ejus corrupte 
referentes, ilium vocaverunt Bigoth ; unde Normanni adhuc Bigothi dicuntur. — 
Duchesne, Historice Francorum scriptores, t. iii, p. 359-360. The author evi- 
dently makes no distinction between Norse and English. 



482 APPENDIX. 

and this hilarity came very near breaking up the meeting", 
and bringing about a resumption of hostilities. But it is 
especially when one nation has vanquished another, and 
feels strong enough to hold the conquered in subjection, 
that people are apt to look down with contempt upon the 
language of those whom they consider of an inferior race. 
Such were the feelings of the Ostrasian Franks toward 
the unfortunate Gallo-Roman people that lived as by tol- 
erance among them. Though actually small in number, 
they still outnumbered the latter, and this numerical supe- 
riority, as well as the fact of their having as neighbors 
friendly tribes of the same blood, gave the Franks a sense 
of importance which was still further increased by the 
prestige of the empire in Carlovingian times. 

Charlemagne, the hero and founder of the Carlovingian 
dynasty, knew several foreign languages and spoke Latin 
fluently, according to Eginhard, his historian and biog- 
rapher, but the Francic was his vernacular, and so fond 
was he of this rude but energetic idiom, that he even un- 
dertook to write a sort of grammar of it himself. His son, 
Louis the Pious, also preferred his native language, though 
he was equally familiar with Latin. 1 He ordered a Teu- 
tonic translation to be made of the Gospel, and it is prob- 
ably to him that we owe the version of Otfrid, the monk, 
which is still extant. 2 It is not likely, therefore, that his 
grandson, Charles the Bald, though reigning over a Ro- 
mance-speaking people, and speaking that language him- 
self, could have forgotten the language of his sires, or even 
neglected it, obliged as he was to use it constantly in his 

Bigot remained for a long time a nickname among the French to designate 
the Normans, and had not then its present meaning of " a blind zealot ; a hypo- 
crite " : 

Por la discorde et grant envie 

Ke Franceiz ont vers Normendie, 

Mult ont Franceiz Normanz laidiz 

E de mefaiz e de mediz. 

Sovent lor dient reproviers 

E claiment bigoz e draschiers ; 

Sovent les ont medle el rei, 

Sovent dient : Sire por kei 

Ne tollez la terre as bigoz ? 

A vos ancessors et as noz 

La tolirent lor ancessor 

Ki par mer vinrent robeor. 

Rom. de Rou, v. 9938 et suiv. 

1 Latinam vero sicut naturalem sequaliter loqui poterat. — Theganus, De 
gestis Ludovici Pii ; Recueil des histor. de France, t. vi, p. 78. 

2 Otfrid's version of the Gospel is found in Shilter's Thesawus antiquita- 
tum teutonicarum, vol. ii. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 483 

relations with the Germanic princes, which were often com- 
plicated and of a delicate nature. So even his ministers, 
and those who took a leading part in the management of 
public affairs, were compelled to learn the language which 
at that time was indispensable for the transaction of politi- 
cal business. But by the middle of the ninth century a 
correct knowledge of the Francic language had become 
so rare in the kingdom, that Loup de Ferriere, one of the 
principal ministers of Charles the Bald, found it necessary 
to send his nephew and two other young gentlemen to 
Germany for the purpose of learning German. 1 And so 
it went on for a century or more, the Romance idiom 
steadily improving as it was gaining ground, the German 
rapidly declining, and studied only by those who had ab- 
solute need of it. 

It was about this time that the Danish Vikings— Nor- 
man as they were called in Gaul — afflicted the country 
with incessant invasions. Their mode of conducting war, 
of which we have seen the direful effects in England, 
was here of the same character, and such as to disconcert 
even the best-framed measures of defense. Making their 
attacks by surprise, and retreating with the utmost rapid- 
ity after striking their blow, they devastated whole dis- 
tricts to such an extent that, to use the expression of a 
contemporary writer, " where they had passed, no dog 
remained to bark." Castles and fortified places were the 
sole refuge against them ; but at this first epoch of their 
irruptions, very few of these existed, and even the walls 
of the old Roman towns were falling into decay. While 
the rich nobles flanked their manor-houses with turreted 
towers, and surrounded them with deep ditches, the in- 
habitants of the plains emigrated in crowds from their 
villages to the neighboring forest, where they encamped 
in huts, defended by palisades and felled trees. Ill-pro- 
tected by their rulers, who found themselves powerless, 
they sometimes became inspired with the courage of de- 

1 Filium Guagonis, nepotem meum, vestrumque propinquum, et cum eo 
duos alios pueros nobiles, et quandoque, si Deus vult nostro monasterio suo 
servicio profuturos, propter germanice lingua nanciscendam scientiam, vestrae 
sanctitati mittere cupio. — Loup de Ferriere, epist. xii, ad Marcwardum abbatem, 
anno 844 ; Rec. des histor. de France, t. vii, p. 488. 

In a subsequent letter Loup de Ferriere acknowledges Marward's attention 
to his request and recommendation. Siquidem inter alia quae nobis jam plurima 
prsestitistis, linguae vestrae pueros nostras fecistis participes, cujus linguae usum 
noc tempore pernecessarium nemo, nisi nimis tardus, ignorat. — Loup de Fer- 
riere, epist. Ixx ; ap. Duchesne, Histor. Franc, script., t. ii, p. 764. 



484 APPENDIX. 

spair, and, armed merely with clubs, would encounter the 
axes of the Normans. As in England, not a few, de- 
pressed and demoralized, renounced their baptismal vow 
to propitiate the pagan conqueror. This apostasy was 
more general in the quarters most exposed to the disem- 
barkation of the pirates, who even recruited their ranks 
from among the very people that had lost all by their 
ravages ; we are, indeed, assured by ancient historians, 
that the famous sea-king Hasting was the son of a laborer 
near Troyes. 

Nearly a century elapsed between the first and the 
second descent of the Normans upon Gaul, in which in- 
terval was accomplished, amid calamities of every de- 
scription, the dismemberment of the empire founded by 
Charlemagne. Brittany, which, independent under the 
first Frankish dynasty, had been subjected by the sec- 
ond, commenced the movement, and in the first half of 
the ninth century became once more a separate state. 
Fifty years later, the ancient kingdom of the Visigoths — 
the district between the Loire, the Rhone, and the Pyre- 
nees — after having long, and with varied success, strug- 
gled against the Frank dominion, became, under the name 
of Aquitaine and Guienne, a distinct sovereignty ; while, 
on the other side of the Rhone, a new sovereignty was 
formed of Provence and the southern part of the ancient 
kingdom of the Burgundians. At the same time, the 
provinces along the Rhone, whither the flood of Ger- 
manic invasions had brought the Teutonic idiom, raised 
a political barrier between themselves and the countries 
where the Romance dialect prevailed. In the intermedi- 
ate space left by these new states, that between the Loire, 
the Maas, the Scheldt, and the Breton frontier, was com- 
pressed the kingdom of the Gallo-Franks, or France. 

This new kingdom of France, the genuine cradle of 
modern France, contained a mixed population — Dutch 
and Flemish under one aspect, Gaulish or Roman under 
another — and foreigners applied to it different names, ac- 
cording to the different view under which they regarded 
it. The Italians, the Spaniards, the English, and the 
Danes called the people of Gaul Franks ; but the Ostra- 
sians, who claimed this noble appellation for themselves, 
denied it to their western neighbors, whom they termed 
Wallons or Welches} In the country itself there prevailed 

1 Few Ethnic names are more interesting than that of the Welsh. The 
root enters into a very large number of the Ethnic names of Europe, and ap- 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 485 

another distinction ; the landed proprietor, in dwelling 
amidst his vassals and colonic solely occupied in war or 
the chase, and who thus lived conformably with the man- 
ners of the ancient Franks, 1 assumed the title of frank- 
ma?i? or that of baron? both taken from the language of 
the conquest. Those who had no manor-house, and who 
inhabited towns (villce), hamlets, or villages, in masses, 
after the Roman fashion, derived from that circumstance 
the names of villains and manants? which, originally mean- 
ing " people living on the villa, people permanently 
dwelling on the farm, husbandmen, bondsmen, slaves," 
have since, by a further degradation, acquired the mean- 
ing of " churl, boor, knave, 5 rascal," in the sense of what 

pears in German, in the form toal, which means anything that is " foreign," or 
" strange." Hence we obtain the German words trailer, a stranger or pilgrim, 
and toallen, to wander, or to move about. A walnut is the " foreign nut," and 
in German a turkey is called 2Bd(fd)e Ijctfjlt, " the foreign fowl," and a French 
bean is 2BdIfdje bofjne, the " foreign bean." All nations of Teutonic blood 
have called the bordering tribes by the name of SBalfcfye, that is, Welshmen, 
or " foreigners." We trace this name around the whole circuit of the region of 
Teutonic occupancy. SBdlfdjianb is the German name of Italy. The Ber- 
nese Oberlander calls the French-speaking district to the south of him by the 
name of Canton Wallis, or Wales. Wallenstadt and the Wallensee are on the 
frontier of the Romansch district of the Chur-walchen, or men of the Grisons. 
The Sclaves and Germans called the Bulgarians Wlochi or Wolochi, and the 
district which they occupied Wallachia ; and the Celts of Flanders, and of the 
Isle of Walcheren, were called Wallootis by their Teutonic neighbors. North- 
western France is called Valland in the Sagas, and in the Saxon Chronicle 
Wealand denotes the Celtic district of Armorica. The Anglo-Saxons called 
their Celtic neighbors the Welsh, and the country by the name of Wales. See 
note, page 20. Cornwall was formerly written Cornwales, the country inhab- 
ited by the Welsh of the Horn. The chroniclers uniformly speak of North- 
Wales and Corn- Wales. In the charters of the Scoto-Saxon kings the Celtic 
Picts of Strath Clyde are called Walenses. 

1 Vivere, habitare, succedere more Francorum. — Ducange, Glossar. 

2 Francus homo. — Ibid. 

8 Baro, bam, beam, bairn, beorn, originally meant " a male child ; a man " ; 
and by extension, " a husband." Lo bar non est creat perla femna, mas la fem- 
na per lo baro. — Raynouard, Lexique Roman. 

4 In Latin villani and manentes. The term villa, which, among the Ro- 
mans only designated a country house, was at an early date applied, in the 
Neo-Latin languages, to every description of inhabited place. 

6 The terms churl, boor, knave, conveyed originally no opprobrium whatso- 
ever. Churl, in Anglo-Saxon ceorl, in German, Danish, and Swedish karl, in 
Dutch kerel, means " a man ; a fellow." In the latter language Karel is the 
proper name for Charles. Boor is a Dutch word, written boer, and pronounced 
as in English, the Dutch oe having the sound of the English 00 or ou. In that 
language it means " a peasant ; a farmer ; a tiller of the soil," and, in its Eng- 
lish form, is part of the word neigh-bour. In Anglo-Saxon gebzir meant " a hus- 
bandman ; a farmer ; a countryman." Knave meant originally " a boy." It is 
the German knabe, the Dutch knaap, the Anglo-Saxon cndfa and cndpa, in 
every case meaning " a lad ; a boy ; a male child " ; sometimes " a servant boy." 
Chaucer speaks of " a knaue child " ; and in the Ancren Riwle we find " the 
kokes knaue thet wassheth the disshes," " the cook's boy that washes the dishes." 



486 APPENDIX. 

is lowest and most despicable. There were villains re- 
puted free, and villains serfs of the glebe ; but the free- 
dom of the former, constantly menaced and even invaded 
by the lord, was feeble and precarious. Such was the 
kingdom of France, as to its extent and as to the different 
classes of the men who inhabited it, when, in the early 
part of the tenth century, it was again disturbed by that 
grand invasion of the Normans under the leadership of 
Rollo, referred to at length in Chapter V of this volume, 
and whose exploits and success in various parts of Europe, 
for a century and a half, culminated at last in their con- 
quest of England. 

Owing to the unsettled state of society, and the con- 
stant wars which followed the death of Charlemagne, 
learning was still rare in France, literature and science 
non-existent. The Carlovingian revival had certainly ac- 
complished a good deal ; it left its mark ; but, after all, 
the permanent results were not great. Whether we look 
at the three centuries that preceded it, or the two hun- 
dred and fifty years that followed it, we do not find much 
that can be called learning, we find nothing that can be 
called literature. In spite of the labors of Alcuin and of 
Theodulf, the decrees of episcopal councils and edicts of 
kings, we are told by Loup de Ferriere, the favorite of 
Louis the Pious, and Charles the Bald, that the study of 
letters was in his time almost null. But while it is true 
that there were only a few great literary names during 
that period, it would not be correct to infer from this that 
there was absolutely no learning. Not to speak of the 
Irish monks and other scholars, such as Theodulf and 
Eginhard, and the patient and secluded learning of the 
greater monasteries and abbeys, such as St. Riquier, St. 
Galle, Fulda, and the famous schools of Orleans and 
Rheims and, later, of Paris, we have to remember that 
the Benedictines everywhere were teachers and to a cer- 
tain extent students. While steadily accumulating mate- 
rials and forming libraries, they maintained, with varying 
fortunes, the tradition of knowledge. Thus, after all, the 
ninth and tenth centuries, perhaps, did more for educa- 
tion, as that word was then understood, in proportion to 
the means and opportunities available, than any period 
since Alcuin and Charlemagne. Theological questions 
engaged the leaders of the Church, great political and 
social movements preoccupied men's minds. The Nor- 
mans were invading France, the Danes were descending 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 487 

on England, the Turks and Saracens were threatening 
all Christendom, and society was fighting for its life. 
Notwithstanding the savage struggle, Europe was being 
slowly penetrated by Christian ideas. The self-sacrifice 
of the religious orders kept steadily before men's minds 
the fact that the spirit lives by the spirit, and that the 
things of earth are not to be compared with the things 
that are eternal ; and many men of noble birth and great 
possessions, to whom a conspicuous secular career was 
open, sought refuge in the monkish cowl, and a life in 
community. 

Their monastic life was, however, not merely a religious 
life ; in most cases it was an academic life, and education 
in those days devolved upon them alone. Each monas- 
tery was usually divided into two schools, and had two 
classes of pupils — the inner, or claustral school, in which 
the boys who were devoted by their parents to a monkish 
life (pblati) were taught, and the outer school, frequented 
chiefly by those intending to fill the office of parochial 
priest, or preparing themselves for secular appointments. 
These outer schools were also attended by some for edu- 
cation solely, without ulterior reference to any specific 
ecclesiastical or secular function. In the inner school the 
oblati were maintained, as well as educated, gratuitously ; 
in the outer schools, pupils had to pay for their mainte- 
nance, but not for their instruction. At the same time, the 
giving of presents was largely encouraged, especially 
when the boys left. These presents, often of great value, 
went sometimes to the funds of the school, at other times 
as tips into the pockets of the master. For the poor in 
the outer school, the monasteries themselves often made 
provision. Land was also frequently bequeathed for this 
specific purpose, and even alms asked. Hence the origin 
of the foundations attached to cathedrals and monasteries, 
and afterward to universities. 

The course of studies for beginners was much the same 
throughout the entire ninth and tenth centuries as had 
been laid down by Alcuin. 1 In the earlier stages of the 
higher instruction the master explained the Latin authors 
in the vernacular ; but the more advanced scholars had 
explanations given them in Latin, and were required to 
show that they understood the author by rendering him 
in Latin prose. The main object always kept in view was 

1 See pages 161-164. 



488 APPENDIX, 

a practical command of the Latin tongue — not literature 
or art ; still a good metrical exercise seems always to have 
been regarded in the more learned schools as a high test 
of linguistic proficiency. Rhetoric received little or no 
attention ; but the writing of letters, and the drawing up 
of public documents was taught with much care, and re- 
duced to a regular system, [n a letter of importance, for 
instance, the following order of composition was always 
strictly observed, viz., Salutatio, Captatio, Benevolentia, Nar- 
ratio, Petitio, Conclusio. Young ecclesiastics looked for- 
ward to employment as secretaries at royal courts and 
in noble houses, and hence the attention paid to the 
teaching of correspondence. There were, of course, 
among the monks, some who had a larger conception of 
their work than others. John of Salisbury, in giving an 
account of the teaching of a distinguished monk of the 
beginning of the twelfth century, Bernard de Chartres, 
tells us that he accustomed his pupils to apply the rules 
of grammar to the texts they read, that he directed their 
attention to delicacies of language and beauty of expres- 
sion, to the aptness of terms and metaphors, and the dis- 
position of the argument. He criticised the varieties of 
style of different authors, and took advantage of allusions 
to give much collateral instruction. He also exercised 
his pupils daily in writing Latin prose and verse, and re- 
quired them to learn fine passages by heart. This, it will 
be seen, was applied rhetoric as well as grammar, and 
indeed constitutes what we now understand by training 
in the humanities. No doubt this was an exceptional 
school, and it existed only after the university movement 
had begun. 

As in England, so in France, school discipline was ex- 
ceedingly severe, and in those days the rod, it seems, was 
considered the basis of all human understanding. Guizot, 
in his fifth lecture on the " History of Civilization," quotes 
the following passage taken from the autobiography of 
Guibert de Nogent 1 as an illustration : 

" My mother," says the author, " brought me up with 
the most tender care. Scarcely had I learned the first 
elements of letters, when, eager to have me instructed, she 
confided me to a master of grammar. There was, shortly 
before this epoch, and even at this time, so great a scarcity 
of masters of grammar, that, so to speak, scarce one was 

1 D'Archery, Venerabilis Guiberti de Novigento opera. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 489 

to be seen in the country, and hardly could they be found 
in the great towns. He to whom my mother resolved to 
confide me had learned grammar at a rather advanced age, 
and was so much the less familiar with this science, as he 
had devoted himself to it at a later period ; but what he 
wanted in knowledge he made up for in virtue. From the 
time I was placed under his care, he formed in me such a 
purity, he so thoroughly eradicated from me all the vices 
which generally accompany youth, that he preserved me 
from the most frequent dangers. He never allowed me 
to go anywhere except in his company, to sleep anywhere 
but in my mother's house, to receive a present from any 
one without her permission. He required me to do every- 
thing with moderation, precision, attention, and exertion. 

" Every one, seeing how my master excited me to work, 
hoped at first that such great application would sharpen 
my wits ; but this hope soon diminished, for my master, 
altogether unskillful at reciting verses, or composing them 
according to rule, almost every day loaded me with a 
shower of cuffs and blows, to force me to know what he 
himself was unable to teach me. Still he showed me so 
much friendship, he occupied himself concerning me with 
so much solicitude, he watched so assiduously over my 
safety that, far from experiencing the fear generally felt 
at that age, I forgot all his severity, and obeyed with an 
inexpressible feeling of love. One day, when I had been 
struck, having neglected my work for some hours in the 
evening, I went and seated myself at my mother's knee, 
severely bruised, and certainly more so than I had de- 
served. My mother having, according to her custom, 
asked if I had been beaten that day, I, in order to avoid 
accusing my master, assured her that I had not. But she, 
pulling aside, whether I would or no, the garment they 
call a shirt, saw my little arms all black, and the skin of 
my shoulders all raised up and swollen by the blows of the 
rod which I had received. At this sight, complaining that 
they treated me with too much cruelty at so tender an 
age, all troubled and beside herself, her eyes full of tears, 
she cried, ' I will no longer have thee become a priest, 
nor, in order to learn letters, that thou thus endure such 
treatment.' But I, at these words, regarding her with all 
the anger of which I was capable, said to her : ' I would 
rather die than cease learning letters, and wishing to be 
a priest.' " 

If such was the character of the best private instruc- 
33 



490 APPENDIX. 

tion obtainable in those days, we may form an idea of the 
methods then in vogue in the conventual establishments 
which the mass of students had to resort to for their edu- 
cation. 

" Up to the end of the eleventh century the instruction 
was, speaking generally, and allowing for transitory periods 
of revival, and for a few exceptional schools, a shrunken 
survival of the old trivium et quadrivium. The lessons, 
when not dictated and learned by heart from notes, were 
got up from bald epitomes. All that was taught, more- 
over, was taught solely with a view to ' pious uses/ 
Criticism did not exist ; the free spirit of speculation could 
not, of course, exist. The rules of the orders inevitably 
cribbed and confined the minds of the learners, old and 
young. The independent activity of the human mind, if 
it could be called independent, showed itself only in chroni- 
cles, histories, acta sanctorum, and so forth. This was, 
doubtless, a necessary stage in the historical development 
of Europe, and it is absurd to talk of these ages as ' dark 
ages,' by way of imputing blame or remissness to the 
Catholic Church. All that could be done was done by 
the Catholic organizations, and by no other agency. The 
Catholic Church did not prohibit learning if it subserved 
the faith. Opinion was watched, certainly, but to look 
with superfluous alarm on possible developments of anti- 
theological speculation did not occur to the men of that 
time, and this is conspicuously shown in the attitude which 
the popes took to universities when they began to arise 
(1100-1150). When heresies did show themselves, they 
were, at least at first, met by labored argument, and the 
suppression of them by councils was, in truth, the last act 
in a series of able disputations — the judicial summing up 
and sentence, so to speak. In brief, the Christian schools 
were doing their proper work for Europe. They did not 
promote learning in any true sense ; but they conserved 
learning, and, what was of more importance, they were 
leavening the life of the people." 1 

But those early centuries not only were engaged in 
taking to heart the practical teachings of Christianity ; in 
other directions than that of learning there also was great 
activity. In the century that saw the death of Charle- 
magne, there arose out of feudalism an educational force 
far more potent than the monastic schools. This was a 

1 S. S. Laurie, The Rise and Early Constitution of Universities. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 4 gi 

secular order, destined to work great changes in the po- 
litical as in the moral world — the order of chivalry. The 
element of personality and individual merit was so all- 
powerful in this order, that, in this respect, it may be said 
to have contained the germs of reformation ideas. Tak- 
ing its rise in the tenth century, it grew steadily in im- 
portance, and effloresced in the eleventh, twelfth, and 
thirteenth. These last were also the centuries of intellect- 
ual revival, and it is interesting to note that together with 
this intellectual movement we have the assertion of moral 
freedom and personal moral responsibility in the chivalric 
order. Its creed was love of honor, personal courage, 
alone and against odds, truthfulness, an abstract love of 
justice, respect for woman, and courtesy. The Teutonic 
spirit thus illustrating itself in Christianity was a civilizing 
and spiritualizing agency of no mean character. This the 
Church soon saw, and it quickly brought chivalry within 
its own organization by consecrating with solemn cere- 
monies the sword of the knight to the defence of the faith. 
As it was an order of personal nobility as distinguished 
from the nobility attached to hereditary possessions, a 
career was thus opened for ardent and ambitious youth. 
At the great castles there arose what might be called ba- 
ronial schools of gymnastic and military training, of cour- 
tesy and honor. High moral tone led to a corresponding 
refinement in thought, in taste and manners, and ere long 
not only singing and playing on stringed instruments were 
among the choicest pleasures, both of noble knights and 
ladies, but even the art of versification was cultivated and 
encouraged by them. 

From the tenth century the French nation begins its 
real life. The circumstances which had kept up a knowl- 
edge of the Francic idiom among the Carlovingian princes 
had ceased to exist under the kings of the succeeding dy- 
nasty, and Hugh Capet, the first of these, though of Ger- 
man origin, was as ignorant of the language of Charle- 
magne as he was of that of Augustus. When he had an 
interview with Otto II, Emperor of Germany, who ad- 
dressed him in Latin, he was obliged to call in the assist- 
ance of Arnulphus, Bishop of Orleans, as an interpreter. 1 
Under his reign the Romance was the only language spoken 

1 Otto gloriam sibi parare cupiens, ex industria egit ut omnibus a cubiculo 
regio eniissis .... dux {Hugo) etiam solus cum solo episcopo (Arnulfo) intro- 
duceretur ; ut rege latiariter loquente, episcopus latinitatis interpres duci quic- 
quid diceretur indicaret. — Richeri hist, lib., iv. 



492 



APPENDIX. 



at his court, and such of the German princes as wished to 
keep up relations were obliged to send ambassadors who 
knew that language. 1 As the use of the French speech 
increased, the knowledge of Latin diminished, and its use 
as a colloquial language was finally abandoned even by 
the upper classes who had clung to it for three centuries 
after it had died out among the people. 

Still, while by this time the language had assumed a 
distinct form which made it differ from Latin, its tendency 
was more and more to cast off Celtic and Germanic influ- 
ences, and to remain Latin in spirit, although divested yet 
of that uniformity of vocabulary, grammar, and syntax 
which it had at the time of Augustus, and which it was to 
acquire again in the age of Louis XIV. Nothing, on the 
contrary, could be more diverse, more irregular, or more 
confused than the various dialects spoken in the Middle 
Ages, from the Rhine to the Atlantic, from the North Sea 
to the Mediterranean. All these, however, were the con- 
tinuation of the numerous Latin dialects which had found 
their way into Gaul, modified by contact with other dia- 
lects, and by the wear and tear of ages ; but the same fam- 
ily resemblance found in the originals remained discerni- 
ble also in their descendants. At first sight it may seem 
impossible, perhaps, to distinguish between all the provin- 
cial and local differences that may have risen from an ig- 
norant use of a language already divided and subdivided 
into so many dialectic varieties ; but after minute inquiry 
and careful observation, light appears, and order comes 
out of chaos. Then, under the infinite caprices of igno- 
rance and local freaks and fancies, we discover peculiar 
tendencies depending on race, climate, food, occupation, 
intercourse with neighboring nations, and other influences 
which affect the human speech in different directions. 
Examined in this light, and considering the main charac- 
teristics only, we find in Early French two main dialects 
to which all the rest may be referred ; the one spoken to 
the north of the Loire, in which the Teutonic influence 
was more sensibly felt, under the name of Roman- Wallon 
or Langue d'oil ; the other used to the southward of that 

1 Thierry, Duke of Lorraine, sent Nanter, Abbot of Saint Michel, as am- 
bassador to the King of France, because he knew him to be a man of ready wit, 
and perfectly conversant with the language. Dux (Lotharingice) Theodoricus 
eum {Nanleruni) .... ad quoscumque regni principes dirigebat legatum, et 
maxime ad consobrinum suum, regem Francorum, quoniam noverat eum in re- 
sponsis acutissimum, et lingua galliaz perltia facundissimum. — Chron. monast. 
S. Michaelis ; Mabillon, Vetera analecta, Rec. des Histor. de France, t. x, p. 286. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 493 

river, where Roman civilization, being better established, 
opposed that influence, and which was termed Roman 
proper or Langue d'oc. 1 

Of these, the most refined and polished was that which 
was spoken by the inhabitants of the southeastern district 
of France. Many causes combined to give this idiom an 
early development. The southeastern Provincals were 
more completely Romanized in the first instance; 2 they 
were less subject to foreign invasion than the other in- 
habitants of France ; the Burgundians and Visigoths who 
settled among them were more adapted to social life than 
the other German tribes, and more readily assimilated 
their language and customs to those of their subjects ; and 
when at last Provence became a part of the Frankish do- 
minions they were no longer an overbearing foreign sol- 
diery, but the civilized and Romanized subjects of a regular 
monarchy. The happy climate of Provence, and the wealth 
and commerce of the people, contributed to foster and en- 
courage those arts which flourish only in a genial soil ; and 
we are not to wonder if the southern Provincals out- 
stripped at that time the northern Gauls in intellectual 
tastes as well as in physical comforts. 

It is not within the limits of this chapter to enter into 

1 These curious names spring from the custom, not uncommon in the Mid- 
dle Ages, of designating languages by the sign of affirmation ; just as Dante 
calls Italian la lingua di si. The modern French oui was oil in the north and 
oc in the south of France. Oc comes from the Latin hoc (that is it), and was 
sometimes further shortened into 6. Ne dire ni 6 ni non was in the thirteenth 
century equivalent to ne dire ni oui ni non. Just as hoc became oc, so the com- 
pound hoc i llud (just so) became oil. As in many other French words, the final 
/ was not pronounced. This form oil had corresponding to it the form nennil 
from the Latin non illud (not so), and in the same way as nennil was afterward 
written nenni, so oil became oi, whence oui in modern French. The Langue 
d'oil is also known by the name of Langue des trouveurs or trouv&res, and the 
Langue d'oc by that of Langue des troubadours, Leinosi, Provensalesc, from the 
inhabitants of southern Gaul calling themselves Provinciales, that is, Romance 
Provincice inquilini, as distinguished from the Francigence of the north. The 
word trouvhre comes from the French trouver, and troubadour from the Pro- 
vencal trouba with the same meaning, and the sense of which, like that of the 
Greek word iroislv, " to make," from which we derive poesie, implies invention. 

2 It is right, perhaps, to say that Marseilles in particular was rather Greecised 
than Romanised ; and as to its civilization Cicero remarks : " Neque vero te, 
Massilia, praetereo : cujus ego civitatis disciplinam atque gravitatem non solum 
Grceciae, sed haud scio an cunctis gentibus anteponendam dicam ; quae tam 
procul. a Graecorum omnium regionibus, disciplinis linguaque divisa, quum in 
ultimis terris cincta Gallorum gentibus barbariae fluctibus alluatur, sic optima- 
turn consilio gubernatur, ut omnes ejus instituta laudare facilius possint quam 
aemulari." — Oral, pro Flacco., 26, § 36. And Justin : " Adeoque magnus et 
hominibus et rebus impositus est nitor, ut non Graecia in Gallia emigrasse, sed 
Gallia in Grasciam translata videretur." — Hist. Philipp. lib. xliii, cap. 4. 



494 



APPENDIX. 



any detailed history of the language spoken south of the 
river Loire, now generally known by the name of Pro- 
vencal; we need only observe that in its forms it bore a 
much closer resemblance to the Latin than the Langue 
d'oil, and that, as the literary language of the south of 
France during a great part of the middle ages, it has left 
numerous documents of rare value both for history and 
philology. The following extract, in which the two lan- 
guages figure side by side, will give an idea of their 
analogy : 

LANGUE D'OC. LANGUE D'OIL. 

Totz hom que vol trobar ni Toz horn qui vuelt trover ne 
entendre deu primierament sa- entendre doit premierement sa- 
ber que neguna parladura no es voir que nule parleure del nos- 
tant naturals ni tant drecha del tre langage n'est tant droite 
notre lingage con aquella de com cele de Provence ou de 
Proenza o de Lemosi. Limousin. 

This double quotation suffices to show the close rela- 
tionship between the two languages. The only character- 
istic difference lies in the rich and brilliant tones of the 
Provencal, compared with the duller sound of the northern 
French. In trobar, neguna, parladura, drecha, aquella, Proen- 
za, and Lemosi, all the final syllables are sonorous, while 
the Langue d'o'il substitutes nasal and muffled sounds, with 
a tendency to make the final a a silent e in all the words 
corresponding — trover, nule, parleure, droite, cele, Provence, 
Limousin — a dialectic difference, owing to a difference of 
character, temperament, and other influences alluded to 
already. 1 

1 The final e, which is now only a whisper, and utterly silent before a vowel 
sound, was, up to about the middle of the sixteenth century, a distinct and well- 
marked sound, similar to the final o, still heard in the pronunciation of the Pro- 
vencal peasantry, as in f ranee" so, musico, pdsto, for francaise, musique, poste. 
Palsgrave, the old English grammarian, in his Esclaircissement de la langue 
francoyse, published in 1530, says expressly (lib. i, regula 5) : " If e be the laste 
vowell in a Frenche worde, beynge of many syllables, eyther alone or with an s 
ffollowynge hym, the worde not havyng his accent upon the same e, then shall 
he in that place sound almost lyke an , and very moche in the noose, as these 
wordes, hdmnie, fe'mme, honeste, pdrle, homines, ftmmes, honestes, shall have 
theyr laste e sounded in maner lyke an 0, as hommo, femmo, konesto, parlo, hom- 
mos, femmos, honestos ; so that if the reder lyft up his voyce upon the syllable 
that commeth nexte before the same e, and sodaynly depresse his voyce whan 
he commeth to the soundynge of hym, and also sounde hym very moche in the 
noose, he shall sounde e, beyng written in this place as the Frenchmen do ; 
whiche upon this warnynge if the lerner wyll observe by the Frenchmen's 
spekynge, he shall easely percieve." Then, passing from theory to practice, he 
gives us the pronunciation as it ought to be : " La tres honnorte magnificence " j 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



495 



The principal dialects of the Langne cTo'il were four in 
number — the Norman, Picard, Bourguignon, and the 
French of the He de France, which was the center of 
the triangle formed by the provinces where the other 
three were spoken. Each of these dialects had its own 
distinct features, mainly consisting of a difference of pro- 
nunciation and orthography, but marked enough to be 
noticed even by foreigners. Roger Bacon, in considering 
what the dialects of a" language may be, thus states what 
he had observed in France. " The idioms of the same 
language," he says, "vary in different districts, as is clear- 
ly the case in France, which has numerous varieties of 
idiom among the French, the Normans, the Picards, and 
the Burgundians ; and what is correct speech in Picardy, 
is looked upon as a barbarism by the Burgundians, and 
even by the French'." 1 

This difference, which affected the forms of words 
only, and not the syntax, may be illustrated by a few 
nouns, adjectives, and verbs, which we have selected, and 
placed together with the Latin words from which they are 
derived, the Norman dialect being the elder, and the 
Picard the nearest to modern French in point of time of 
formation. 



LATIN. 


NORMAN. 


BOURGUIGNOK 


r. PICARD. 


FRENCH. 


Ccelum 


Cel 


Ciel 


Chiel 


Ciel 


Sol 


Soleus 


Soloil 


Solaus 


Soleil 


Monachus 


Muine 


Moine 


Moignes 


Moine 


Bonus 


Buen 


Boin 


Boin 


Bon 


Bona 


Buene 


Boine 


Bonne 


Bonne 


Bucca 


Buche 


Boiche 


Bouce 


Bouche 


Gula 


Gule 


Gole 


Goule 


Gueule 


Venatio 


Veneisuns 


Venison 


Venoison 


Venaison 


Cadere 


Cheir 


Chaoir 


Quer 


Cheoir 


Dicebat 


11 diseit 


11 disoit 


11 disoit 


11 disait 


Faciebat 


11 feseit 


11 fesoit 


11 fesoit 


11 faisait 



the French, he says, pronounce (" la-tres onnoreo-manifisdnsd) : secretaire du roy 
nostre sire, {secretdyro-deu-roy-notro-siro) ; glorieuse renommee {glorieuzo-7'enoum- 
meo") This leaves us no room to doubt what was the pronunciation of the 
silent e at that time, and shows the difference of sound between northern and 
southern dialects to have been much less in that particular than it has been 
since. 

1 Nam et idiomata variantur ejusdem linguae apud diversos, sicut patet de 
lingua Gallicana quae apud Gallicos et Normannos, et Picardos, et Burgundos 
multiplici variatur idiomate. Et quod proprie dicitur in idiomate Picardorum 
horrescit apud Burgundos, imo apud Gallicos viciniores. — Roger Bacon, Opus 
Majus, iii, 44. In the middle ages the name of Francoys, " Frenchman " was 
exclusively that of the inhabitants of the He de France. 



496 APPENDIX. 

All these show a fundamental uniformity under a va- 
riety of outward forms, due to local influences, similar to 
those which caused the broader differences between the 
northern and southern dialects, which in some instances 
were so great as to make the dialects of one part of the 
country to be looked upon as foreign in the other ; and so 
thoroughly foreign was French considered in the south 
of France, even as late as the fourteenth century, that in 
the Leys d'Amor, a poetical code of laws, it is classed with 
English, Spanish, and Lombard. 1 In 1229, in a municipal 
document of Albi, a notary excuses himself for not hav- 
ing read the inscription of a seal because it was in French, 
or some other foreign tongue. 2 Such ignorance of an- 
other dialect, however, was often affected, and generally 
accompanied by the expression of haughty disdain, the 
remnant of former international antagonism, often sub- 
sisting among immediate neighbors, who disliked each 
other simply for speaking a different dialect, or even the 
same, but with a different accent. Thus the monks of the 
abbey of Andres could hardly bear those of the abbey of 
Charroux, of which theirs was a dependency, on account 
of a difference of accent — propter Lingnarum dissonantia, 
says the chronicler. 

Meanwhile the court of France had become, for all the 
northern provinces, the model and school of courtesy and 
refined manners, and the language spoken in the royal 
palace was the natural expression thereof. As early as 
the twelfth century no one was admitted at the court of 
France, were he prince or noble, who could not express 
himself in French, that is in the dialect of the Ile-de- 
France; 3 and no trouvere had any chance of success un- 

1 Apelam lengatge estranh come frances, engles, espanhol, lombard. — 
Leys d'Amor, ii, 318. 

2 In lingua gallica vel alia nobis extranea, quam licet literae essent integral, 
perfecto non potuimus perspicere. 

3 About the year 11 80, Quenes de B£thune was invited to court, when Alice 
de Champagne, and the prince her son, who afterward reigned under the name 
of Philippe-Auguste, expressed a desire to hear some of his poetry. So 
Quenes declaimed some of his best verses, but spoke with a strong Picard 
accent. The consequence was that he was laughed at by the courtiers, reproved 
by the queen and her son, and blamed by everybody, especially by a certain 
countess whom he had most at heart to please. He thus describes himself his 
misadventure : 

" Mon langage ont blasme" li Francois 
Et mes changons, oyant les Champenois 
Et la contesse encoir, dont plus me poise (phe) 
La roine ne fit pas que courtoise, 
Qui me reprist, elle et ses hex li rois ; 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



497 



less he used that dialect for his compositions. 1 When not 
sufficiently acquainted with the prevailing dialect to vent- 
ure upon its use, they generally make some statement to 
that effect in the preface of their works, often expressing 
sarcastic regrets for not being conversant with the more 
refined dialect of Paris. 2 

In using the word dialect, so often recurring in these 
pages, we mean some particular mode of speech peculiar 
to one locality, and differing from that of other provinces 
by changes of pronunciation, of orthography, and the ar- 
rangement of words in the sentence. As long as the dia- 
lects of a country have all the same literary importance, 
and no predominance one over another, they remain in 
the condition of dialects. Thus in Greece, the Ionian, 
iEolian, Attic, and Doric were dialects, 8 inasmuch as 

Encoir ne soit ma parole francoise, 

Si la puet-on bien entendre en francois. 

Ne cil me sont bien appris ne courtois 

Qui m'ont repris, si j'ai dit mot d'Artois, 

Car je ne fus pas norriz a Pontoise." 
1 It was for this reason that Aymon de Varennes, a trouvere of the twelfth 
century, wrote his " Roman de Florimont " in French, and not in the dialect of 
Lyons, where he composed his poem : 

II ne fut mie fait en Franee, 

Mais en la langue des Francoys ; 

Le fist Aimes en Leones (Lyonnais). . . . 

Aux Francois veult de tant servir, 

Car ma langue leur est sauvage, 

Que j'ay dit en leur language 

Tout au mieux que je ay sceu dire. 
He did not write in French because he liked the language better than his 
own, for he says : 

Mieux ains ma lengue que l'aultrui ; 
but only for the sake of celebrity, since — 

Romans ne histoire ne plait 

Aux Francoys, se ilz ne l'ont fait. 
9 A trouvere, born in Meun, and who is sometimes mistaken for Jehan de 
Meun, who continued the Roman de la Rose, expresses himself thus : 

Si m'excuse de mon langage 

Rude, malostru et sauvage, 

Car nes ne sui pas de Paris, 

Ne si cointes com fu Paris. 

Mais me raporte et me compere 

Au parler que m'apprist ma mere 

A Meun, quant je l'alaitoie. 
Another trouvere from Normandy, Richard de Lison, finds it necessary to 
warn his readers : 

Qu'il est Normanz ; s'il a mepris, 

II n'en doit ja estre repris, 

Se il y a de son langage. 
8 In respect to the origins of these dialects, Sharon Turner somewhat 
bluntly remarks : " The numerous conjugations of the Greek verbs seem, like 
those of the Sanscrit, to be a collection of barbarisms and cumbersome anoma- 



498 APPENDIX. 

none of these, at the expense of the other three, became 
the language of the entire country, but kept a separate 
and complete existence, each one by itself, with its own 
authors and its own masterpieces of literature. But when, 
from some cause or other, one dialect in particular be- 
comes the exponent of governmental authority and litera- 
ture, that is, of moral and material power, then the latter 
assumes an overwhelming importance, to the detriment 
of all around it, attracts and absorbs their best talent, and 
soon becomes the national language, while the others are 
gradually reduced to the condition of patois. These forms 
of speech, called " patois," therefore, are not, as is com- 
monly thought, literary French corrupted in the mouth 
of ignorant peasants ; they are, on the contrary, the re- 
mains of ancient provincial dialects which, through po- 
litical events, have fallen from the position of official and 
literary languages to that of simple patois. 

Such was the fate of the Norman, the Burgundian, the 
Picard, and all the other dialects of France, except that of 
the He de France, which, being the dialect of the domi- 
nant province, rose in importance, and, eclipsing the 
others, became the common language of the country. 
Hugh Capet, on ascending the throne, had made Paris 
the capital of France. Still, throughout the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries, the Capetian sovereigns, lords of little 
but the He de France and the Orleans territory, had no 
great influence outside the royal domain ; and the dialects 
around it retained their independent equality. But by 
the middle of the thirteenth century the sovereignty of 
the Capets grew stronger, and with its growth the French 
dialect grew also in importance. In noi they took Ber- 
ry ; Picardy fell to Philip Augustus in 1203, and Touraine 
after it; Normandy followed in 1204; Languedoc was 
added in 1272, and Champagne in 1361. The French dia- 
lect followed the triumphant progress of the dukes of 
France, and drove out the dialects of the conquered prov- 
inces. First it was introduced through the official acts of 

lies. Four inflections to express the past tense ! I am aware that our scholars 
have elaborately studied to explore the fine shades and distinctions of meaning 
between the perfect and imperfect, and the first and second aorist. Their ac- 
knowledged failure may be taken as evidence that what they search for did 
not exist. I suspect that they have arisen from the same language having been 
used by many rude tribes, who became afterward much intermixed. Some had 
used one tense, some the other, and the common practical language was at last 
compelled to retain all. The same remark is applicable to the several declen- 
sions of the Latin, Greek, and Sanscrit nouns. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 499 

the conquerors ; then it was used in literary works, and 
finally adopted by all who wished to be thought gentle- 
men. The people alone resisted and kept up their an- 
cient speech, which, gradually ceasing to be written, but 
spoken only by the lower classes, and thus, subject to in- 
cessant alterations, fell from the rank of dialects to that 
of mere patois — in which condition, with some rare ex- 
ceptions, it still subsists in the rural districts of .France. 

But, though French is the only recognized national 
language, and every patois has only its own local exist- 
ence, the study of the latter is not the less important to 
the etymologist, as in their remains especially he looks for 
the connecting links between the modern French and 
Latin, and even for the earlier forms of the latter, many 
of which are still lingering in some remote and isolated 
districts. All these changes and revolutions are the result 
of regular transformations, in which the philologer sees 
only the natural application of general laws ; and, even as 
the solar beam in passing through the prism is decom- 
posed into luminous rays of colors and intermediary 
shades, so a language, after its decomposition, still sub- 
sists in a series of linguistic degradations, which will often 
show traces of their noble origin, though eclipsed by the 
splendor of a rising luminary, to whose power and glory 
they have lent their best substance. 

Thus the French language, not to speak of the various 
writers from all parts of France who have contributed to 
its luster, has largely drawn upon the neighboring dia- 
lects. From the Bourguignon it took the word roi for in- 
stance, and from the Norman reine. Charger was French, 
but carguer comes from the Langue d'oc. It needed such 
a word for a special meaning ; and in the same manner it 
took attaqner from the Picard, though it had attacker al- 
ready. Many words which in the latter dialect had re- 
tained the hard c of the Latin, had the form of ch in 
French. Thus the Latin campus, carta, catus, castellum, 
which in Picard had become camp, carte, cat, caste/, were 
champ, charte, chat, chastel. In some cases modern French 
has adopted both forms, with different shades of meaning, 
though they are in reality the same word. In the same 
way we may account for the double forms of fleurir and 
florir ; grincer and grincher ; e'corcer and e'corcher ; laisser 
and lacher ; charrier and charroyer ; plier and p/oyer, etc. 

It is difficult, in speaking of the history of a language, 
not to allude to the works it has produced, inasmuch as 



500 APPENDIX. 

they are the exact expression of its successive develop- 
ments. We there follow the traces of its formation, and at 
every step discover the various influences by which its 
forms are modified ; and although the study of the au- 
thors of a language belongs more particularly to the his- 
tory of its literature, it will not be the less interesting to 
show how the same may be studied in chronological order 
from a philological point of view. 

The French language, which had commenced as vulgar 
Latin, which in the sixth century was only the jargon of 
the lower classes, and which in the eighth and ninth centu- 
ries began to be cultivated by those who wanted to be 
heard and listened to by the masses, had in the eleventh 
century become almost a learned language, having its 
poets, its prose writers, and even its savans. In tracing 
the transition from Latin into French, in the Oath sworn 
at Strasburg, we find that the sense is still better explained 
by a translation into the former than into the latter lan- 
guage. A hundred years later appears a hymn or poem 
of great beauty, in French verse, on the martyrdom of 
St. Eulalia, which we quote on page 602, followed by its 
French translation. To show, however, how near the lan- 
guage of the time still came to the Latin, we give here the 
first four lines of this poem with a Latin interlinear trans- 
lation : 

Buona pulcella fut Eulalia, 

Bona puella fuit Eulalia, 

Bel avret corps bellezour anima. 

Bellum haberet corpus bellior anima. 

Voldrent la veintre li Deo inimi, 

Voluerunt illam vincere Mi Deo inimici^ 

Voldrent la faire diavle servir. 

Voluerunt illam facer e diabolum servire. 

Compare this with the following extract of the Chanson de 
Roland, the original of which dates less than a hundred 
years later, and notice the remarkable progress of the 
language, which finds its explanation far better by a trans- 
lation into French. The extract describes how Charle- 
magne, wishing to avenge the death of Roland, combats 
the Saracens, and is only saved from the terrible blows of 
the emir Baligant by the intercession of the archangel 
Michael : 

Li amirals est mult de grant vertut ! 
Fiert Carlemagne sur l'elme d'acer brun, 
Desur la teste li ad frait e fendut, 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 501 

Met li l'espee sur les chevels menuz, 

Prent de la earn grant pleine palme, e plus. 

Iloec endreit remeint li os tut nut ! 

Carles cancelet, por poi qu'il n'est caiit, 

Mais Deus ne volt qu'il seit mort ne vencut : 

Seint Gabriel est repairet a lui, 

Si li demandet : "Reis Magnes, que fais-tu ? " 

LITERAL VERSION IN FRENCH. 

L'Emir est plein de grand courage ! 

II frappe Charlemagne sur son heaume d'acier brun, 

Sur la tete l'a frappe et l'a fendu, 

Lui met son epee sur ses cheveux clair-semes, 

Prend de la chair une grande palme pleine, et plus. 

En cet endroit reste l'os tout a nu ! 

Charles chancelle ; pour peu il se laisserait choir. 

Mais Dieu ne veut pas qu'il meure ou qu'il soit vaincu. 

Saint Gabriel est apparu a. lui, 

Et lui demande : " Grand Roi, que fais-tu ? " 

As it was this song which in 1066 led the army of Will- 
iam the Conqueror to victory, it must have been known 
long before to be so popular among the soldiers. In the 
form here given it probably dates from the middle of the 
eleventh century. 1 

From this time forward we have a series of thoroughly 
original poetical productions, graceful and brilliant lyrics, 
and high epics which followed each other in rapid suc- 
cession, and became exceedingly popular in other coun- 
tries as well as at home. Even in the tenth century 
we find it the custom among the English nobles to send 
their sons to France for education, 2 and in the reign of 
Edward the Confessor, French was the language of his 
court. Adenet le Roy, a trouvere of French Flanders, 
who lived about 12 10, informs us that in his time it was 
the custom among the German nobles to have French per- 
sons in the family to teach their children French. 3 Bru- 

1 See page 604. 

8 Ob usum armorum, et ad linguae nativse barbariem tollendam. — Duchesne, 
vol. iii, p. 370. 

3 Avoit une coustume ens el Tyois (Teuton) pais 
Que tout li grant seignour, li comte et li marchis 
Avoient entour eux gent francoyse tous dis 
Pour aprendre francoys leur filles et leur fils. 
" Frenchmen," says Max Muller, " became the tutors of the sons of the Ger- 
man nobility. French manners, dresses, dishes, dances, were the fashion every- 
where, and German poets learned from French poets the subjects of their own 
romantic compositions." 



502 APPENDIX. 

netto Latini, Dante's master, wrote his " Thresor de Sa- 
pience " in French (1260), and as a reason for doing- so he 
says : " S'aucuns demandoit porquoy chis livres est escript 
en romans selonc le parler de France, pour chose que nous 
somes Ytaliens, je diroie que ch'est pour deux raisouns; 
Tune porce que nos somes en France, l'aultre pour chou 
que la parleure en est plus delitauble et plus comune a 
tous gens." In 1275, Martino da Canale translated into 
French the Latin history of Venice, " parce que la lengue 
franceise cort parmi le monde, et est plus delitauble a lire 
et a o'ir que nulle aultre." Marco Polo wrote his travels 
in French (1295). In 1356, John Maundeville translated his 
" Voiage and Travaile " from Latin into French as well as 
into English, so that every one of his nation, he says, might 
understand it. Similar reasons determine Delia Perena 
and Nicolo di Casola, contemporaries of Boccaccio, and 
after them Luigi di Porcia, the Marquis di Saluces, and 
many others to use the French language in preference to 
their own. French was, indeed, the language most gen- 
erally understood, and learned authors, for the purpose of 
popularizing their works, translated them into that idiom. 
Guillaume de Nangis says it is " pour la commodite des 
bonnes gens qu'il a translate son histoire de Latin en Ro- 
mans." High in renown among all universities stood the 
University of Paris. Among the students on its rolls in 
the twelfth century are to be found nearly all of the most 
distinguished among the learned of every country. One 
of the teachers alone, the celebrated Abelard, is said to 
have had as pupils twenty persons who afterward became 
cardinals, and more than fifty who rose to be bishops and 
archbishops. Thomas a Becket and John of Salisbury 
were educated there, and so was Nicholas Breakspear, 
who afterward became pope by the title of Adrian IV. 
Paris was then wont to be styled, by way of pre-eminence, 
the City of Letters, and from every country of Europe 
students flocked to its university. 1 

The following passage of the first Psalm of David, as 
found in the versions of the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, 

1 The fact is referred to in the following lines of a mediaeval Latin song : 

Filii nobilium, dum sunt juniores 

Mittuntur in Franciam fieri doctores. 
Notwithstanding the rising reputation of Oxford and Cambridge, so many Eng- 
lishmen were constantly found among the students of the University of Paris, 
that they formed one of the four nations into which the members of the univer- 
sity were divided. See page 330. It would appear from the following verses of 
Nigellus Wireker, a German student at Paris in 1170, that these young gentle- 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



503 



fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, will serve as specimens 
of the French language in its various stages of progress 
during that period, observing that the text of the Bible is 
in every language always more antiquated than the cur- 
rent idiom, probably from a sense of reverence for things 
sacred which refrains from translating Scriptures in too 
familiar language : 

Twelfth Century. 

Et iert ensement cume fust tresplantet de juxte les ruisals des 
ewes, lequel sun fruit durrat en siin tens. 

E la foille de lui ne decurrat ; e tuit ceo que il serrat fait 
prospre. 

Thirteenth Century. 

Et il sera si com arbre que plantee est juste le cours des eawes, 
lequel donra son fruit en temps sesonale. 

La foille ne cherra; et totes choses qecunque il fera, tut dis 
en prosperunt. 

Fourteenth Century. 

Et il sera come li fust qui est plantes de coste le decourement 
des yauwes qui donra son fruit en temps. 

Et sa fueille ne cherra pas, et tout ce qu'il fera sera touz jours 
en prosperite. 

Fifteenth Century. 

Et il sera comme l'arbre qui est plante jouxte le cours des 
eaues qui son fruit donnera en tout temps. 

Et sa fueille ne descherra ; et toutes choses que le juste fera, 
tous jours prospereront. 

Sixteenth Century. 

II sera comme l'arbre plante le long des eaux courantes, qui 
rend son fruict en sa saison. 

Les feuiiles ne tomberont point ; et tout ce qu'il produira 
viendra a souhait. 

The great intellectual movement which was called the 
" revival of learning," and which resulted mainly, though 
not wholly, from the recurrence to Greek and Roman 
literature and art as models, had been working in Italy 
throughout the fifteenth century ; and the close connec- 

men were then already noted for certain national characteristics which still make 
a prominent part of their reputation : 

Moribus egregii, verbo vultuque venusti, 

Ingenio pollent, consilioque vigent ; 
Dona pluunt populis, et detestantur avaros, 
Fercula multiplicant, et sine lege bibunt. 



504 APPENDIX. 

tion between the French and Italian people was certain 
to spread its influence northward. Still independently of 
this, the studies of native Frenchmen pointed in the same 
direction. In Latin literature the chief works had long 
been known. Virgil, Ovid, and even many of the works 
of Cicero had been for ages the delight of scholars and the 
food of poets. But even in respect to these the greater 
publicity which the multiplication of copies by the print- 
ing-press gave to them, led to innumerable questions being 
stirred which till then had lain comparatively dormant, 
while the problems of textual, philological, and literary 
criticism, which the careful study of the author suggested, 
were now taken up with eagerness by a large and ever- 
increasing circle of students. Other questions of a more 
general interest likewise seized upon the public mind. 
The magnetic needle had pointed out new routes for en- 
terprise and navigation, and the discovery of new coun- 
tries promoted a general spirit of adventure and inquiry 
in intellectual as well as commercial matters. The inven- 
tion of gunpowder had affected materially the composition 
of armies, and changed entirely the former mode of war- 
fare ; and lastly, the great religious revolution, which, after 
smoldering long in England, had burst out in the most 
violent form on the continent, gave the amplest exercise 
to men's power of speaking and writing. 

All these forces required some time to set to work, and 
to avail themselves of the tremendous weapon which the 
press had put into their hands. In no country was their 
literary result more striking and more manifold than in 
France. The double effect of the study of antiquity and 
the religious movements especially, almost at once pro- 
duced there an outburst of literary development of the 
most diverse kinds, which even the fierce and sanguinary 
civil disorders to which the Reformation gave rise did not 
succeed in checking. No century can show a group of 
prose writers and poets as was then formed by the leading 
minds in France. These great writers were not merely 
remarkable for the vigor and originality of their thoughts, 
the freshness, variety, and grace of their fancy, the abun- 
dance of their learning and the solidity of their arguments ; 
their great merit was the creation of a language and a 
style able to give expression to the acumen of their thought 
and their advanced knowledge. It would be idle to un- 
derrate or despise the literary capacities and achievements 
of the older French ; but the old language, with all its 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 505 

merits, was ill-suited to treat the more serious questions 
which now preoccupied men's minds. Pleasant or affect- 
ing- tales could be told in it with interest and pathos. 
Songs of charming naivete' and grace could be sung ; the 
requirements of the epic and the chronicle were suitably 
furnished ; but its vocabulary was limited, not to say poor ; 
it was barren of the terms of art and science, and did not 
readily lend itself to sustained eloquence, to impassioned 
poetry or to logical discussion. It had been too long ac- 
customed to leave those things to Latin, and it bore marks 
of its original character as a lingua rustica — a tongue 
suited to homely conversation, to folk-lore and to ballads 
rather than to the business of the forum and the court, 
the speculations of the study, and the declamation of the 
theatre. Efforts had indeed been made to supply the de- 
fect, but not yet with any marked result. It was reserved 
for the sixteenth century to accomplish the task. 

The first few years of that century were naturally oc- 
cupied rather with the last developments of the mediaeval 
forms than with the production of the. new model; but 
before the century was half over a school of poetry was 
set on foot by a small association of friends who were all 
ardent admirers of the ancient classics, and who endeav- 
ored, as nearly as might be, to shape French poetry and 
the French language in general upon classical models. The 
leaders in this movement were the celebrated " Pleiade," a 
group of seven writers whose names were Ronsard, Du Bel- 
lay, Ba'if, Jodelle, Dorat, Belleau, and Ponthus de Thyard. 
Of these, Dorat was one of the oldest, and the instructor 
of the others in classical lore. Jodelle was before all things 
a dramatic writer, and his models were Seneca and Ter- 
ence rather than Sophocles and Aristophanes; but the 
style was suited to the taste of the people before whom it 
was set, and French tragedy followed no other for nearly 
three hundred years. The other five members of the 
Pleiade were chiefly poets, among whom Ba'if was the 
learned founder of an academy of poetry and music, es- 
tablished in 1 571 under the patronage of Charles IX. He 
proposed a new alphabet and vocabulary, favoring the un- 
limited admission of Greek and Latin words, and was 
especially fond of Latin comparatives and superlatives, 
which caused his friend Du Bellay ironically to address 
him as " docte, doctieur, doctisme Ba'if." The latter him- 
self, however, issued a celebrated manifesto entitled De- 
fence et illustration de la langue francoyse (1548), in which 
34 



506' APPENDIX. 

he proposed a plan for the production of a more poetical 
and noble language by the wholesale importation of Greek 
and Latin words in their natural state, and by introducing 
the literary forms employed by the ancient classical au- 
thors. But the representative poet of the school is Pierre 
de Ronsard, A. D. 1 524-1 585, who was its acknowledged 
head, and was for a very long time hailed as " the prince 
of poets " by both Frenchmen and foreigners. He threw 
aside the indigenous French poetry and wrote odes, ele- 
gies, and pastorals in ancient fashion, and so profusely 
mixed up with Greek and Latin as to be almost unintelli- 
gible to the generality of readers. Still his manner was 
greatly admired by the classical scholars of the age, and 
for a long time after looked upon as the only legitimate 
one in point of good taste and noble inspiration. Thanks 
to his efforts, and the many imitators he found at home 
and abroad, the images of Greek mythology and the tra- 
ditional allegories of Olympian polytheism well nigh 
crowded out the pure symbols of Christianity. 

Among the many causes which led to this great aim 
at improving the vernacular among the men of letters, 
there was one which, probably more than any other, 
gave the real impulse. Up to Ronsard's time a low and 
corrupt Latin had been the language of public adminis- 
tration. This was abolished in 1539 by Francis I, who 
prescribed the exclusive use of French in all public and 
private transactions, and from this time forward it became 
the official language of the courts, the parliament, in short 
of every one, except the clergy and the savans, who kept 
up the practice of studying Latin as a preparation for 
their learned investigations. Still, from the moment 
that French became the official language by royal decree, 
they could not affect to ignore it ; and, following their 
leaders, several set to work to see how it could be im- 
proved, not by a rational inquiry into the modifications 
which time and events had wrought in the language, but 
by a blind return to ancient rules, by which they thought 
the rebellious idioms would be again brought under dis- 
cipline. To them French was a kind of Latin patois, that 
could never be made to serve the purpose of a great na- 
tion unless it was brought back to its ancient classical 
purity, and in their ignorance of the real origin of the 
language, they applied Latin grammar and syntax to an 
idiom which for fifteen centuries had been growing up in 
utter disregard of its rules. This unintelligent manner 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



507 



of understanding linguistics has left a curious trace in the 
very title of one of the first grammars published in France : 
Tractatus Latino-Gallicus, cest a dire, essay de concordance 
entre le latin et le francoys (1543), in which the author re- 
duces everything to the rules of classical Latin, and lays 
it down as a principle, that through Latin alone one can 
obtain a correct knowledge of French, which notion, how- 
ever absurd, found great favor with the classical scholars 
of the time, who were anxious to show their superiority 
by the employment of words not French, but borrowed 
from the Greek and Latin. 

At no time had any revolution been more threaten- 
ing to the existing forms of language, nor had men ever 
been more active or more successful than those who 
formed the Pleiade, in producing the aimed-at results. 
If France was ever to possess a literature worthy of the 
nation, the language, they held, must be enriched and 
strengthened by unlimited borrowings from its parent 
Latin ; and in their enthusiasm they were not far from 
turning the whole Latin dictionary into their native 
tongue. They would even have imported the Greek 
license of compound words, though the genius of the 
French language is wholly repugnant to it. Still, as they 
were all men of the highest talent, and not a few of them 
men of great genius, they achieved much that they de- 
signed, and, even when they failed, they very often indi- 
rectly produced results as important and more beneficial 
than they intended. Doubtless they went too far, and 
adverse criticism and the natural course of time rejected 
much that they had added ; but their work as a whole 
remained, and no force of reaction was ever after able to 
undo it. Their ideal of a separate poetical language, dis- 
tinct from that intended for prose use, was a doubtful, if 
not a dangerous one, especially from the wholesale Latin- 
izing and Hellenizing of their mother-tongue, by which 
they sought to accomplish it ; but for all that their works 
are models of elegance and grace, they abound in pas- 
sages of great eloquence and sustained dignity of language, 
and are singularly free from the heaviness and dryness 
which have since generally attended translations and imi- 
tations of the classics in modern tongues. The truth is 
that, though these writers professed to despise the mid- 
dle ages, they themselves were still animated by a large 
portion of the mediaeval and romantic spirit. The union 
of this with the classical attention to elegance and form 



508 APPENDIX. 

produced the various schools of art and literature to 
which the term " Renaissance " has been attached, and 
among which French sixteenth century literature, and in 
particular the poetry of the Pleiade, of which Ronsard 
was the leading spirit, is universally acknowledged as 
holding the most conspicuous place. 

But great as was the importance of that century in 
the history of French poetry, its importance in the history 
of French prose is greater still. Some of the most distin- 
guished names in prose writing date from this period, and 
many of their works became models of style at home and 
abroad, though they themselves had hardly any predeces- 
sors by whom to guide their attempts. Up to the begin- 
ning of the century, the only works of importance that 
had been written in prose were chronicles and lengthy 
prose versions of the old verse romances. A few sermons, 
a few legal works, a few short prose tales, and still fewer 
treatises on serious subjects summed up the contents of 
French prose literature. Before the close of the period, 
however, there was not a single branch of literature prac- 
ticed in the present day, if we except the comparatively re- 
cent growth of journalism, which had not been attempted 
by writers of the first talent. 

Foremost among these, both by his influence and by 
the style and power of his language, must be named Cal- 
vin, whose Institution de la Religion Chrestienne contains, so 
to speak, the constitution and code of all those religious 
bodies which, at the Reformation, definitively broke with 
the Catholic tradition, and declined to recognize the con- 
tinuity of the Christian Church. Originally written in 
Latin, it was almost at once translated into French by its 
very author, who saw the necessity of appealing to the 
people and not merely to the learned, and who, indeed, 
is responsible for the strong democratic feeling which ac- 
companied the religious revolt in many cases. He dedi- 
cated his work to Francis I, A. D. 1535, calling on him, 
almost in threatening language, to exert the royal power 
in behalf of his views and principles. " Cest voire office, 
sire, de ne detourner ne voz oreilles ne vostre courage d'vne si 
iuste defense, principalement quand il est question de si grande 
chose, cest assauoir comment la gloire de Dieu sera maintenue 
sur la terre, comment sa verite retiendra son honneur et dig- 
nity, comment le regne de Christ demeurera en son entierT 
The power and elegance of his language elicited univer- 
sal admiration, and Bossuet himself admitted of him 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 509 

" cT avoir excelti dans la langue maternelle, et aussi bien ecrit 
quJwmme de son siecle" 

After Calvin, the champions of the national language 
are almost all more or less suspected of Protestantism. 
Clement Marot (1497- 1544) translated the Psalms into 
French, and Marguerite de Navarre, the king's sister, and 
a great patroness of literature as well as of the new re- 
ligious doctrines, had them sung at her court. Etienne 
Dolet published in 1543 a Brief discours de la republique 
francoyse desirant la lecture de la Sainte Escriture lui estre 
loysible en sa langue vulgaire. But the most eager and most 
open Protestant of all was Guillaume du Bartas (1544- 
1590), the most famous of the followers of the Pleiade. 
He attempted works on a much greater scale, and was 
much more successful than any of his predecessors. His 
Divine Sepmaine, or " Week of the World's Creation," is 
an elaborate poem, written in phraseology of the stiffest 
Pleiade pattern, full of Latinisms, double epithets, and 
strange looking words, after the taste and fashion of the 
time, but not the less abounding in passages of great elo- 
quence and sustained dignity of language. As such it 
enjoyed a high reputation at home and abroad, thirty 
editions of it having been printed within six years after 
its appearance. Its religious tone made it a great favor- 
ite with English writers of the time, 1 by whom the author 
was always designated as the " Divine Du Bartas," and 
placed on an equality with Ariosto. At present he would 
be difficult to read, as he even outstripped Ronsard in 
creating new words and in reconstructing words already 
in existence, in lines like these for instance : 

.... "Apollon donne-honneurs 

Donne-dme, porte-jour I 

.... Herme guide-navire 

Mercure, eschelle-ciel, invent' art, ay me -lire ! " 

Though such forms seem to us absurd at present, yet they 
were then received by some with boundless admiration. 
The truth is. literature had become the business of a 
clique, with a kind of learned language, which was under- 
stood by the initiated only. 

At last the good sense of the people protested against 
such extravagances. Rabelais never lost an opportunity 
of ridiculing the pedants of this school, and his scoffing 

1 See page 365. 



5IO APPENDIX. 

sneers did still more than the learned arguments of others 
to check their affected mannerism. To a fop of Bourges, 
who in this exquisite style said : u L origine primeve de mes 
aves et ataves feut indigene des regions lemoviques ok rcquiesce 
le corps de Vagiotate sainct Martial. J'entends bien, dist Pan- 
tagruel, tu es Limozin pour tout potaige, et tu veulz icy contre- 
faire le Parizien" After him, the sharp criticisms of schol- 
ars like Henri Estienne (i 528-1 598) and Francois de Mal- 
herbe (1 556-1628), did with the educated what he had 
done with the masses. Malherbe, especially, set himself 
to oppose the classical tendencies of the Pleiade by sub- 
stituting for them other aims of a quite dissimilar kind. 
" How can our poetry be truly French," said he, " while 
we load it either with Greek and Latin words, or with the 
provincialisms of the various patois of our land "? When- 
ever applied to for an opinion about French words, he 
always referred his questioners to the people at large, 
saying that "they were his masters in language." By thus 
repudiating alike court and college, fashion and erudition, 
and taking for his guide the better instincts of the people 
of Paris, he recognized the taste of the day, and gave to 
the vast wealth of materials gathered by his predecessors 
order and regularity. He it was who set the example 
of the characteristics which distinguished French poetry 
for fully two centuries, and which made it the admiration 
of all Europe. These characteristics may be thus summed 
up: 1. A very accurate versification, absence of hiatus, 
and correct observance of the rhyme. 2. The exclusive 
use of a simple but carefully chosen phraseology, free 
from all harsh and forced inversions and every species of 
license in language. 3. The avoidance of too picturesque 
or startling effects, and the preference of a kind of elegant 
commonplace in the treatment of every subject. " Good 
verse," he said, " ought to be as beautiful as beautiful 
prose." This respect for the reader as well as for the laws 
of style, this high idea of the difficulties of the art, was a 
new thing to the sixteenth century, and under its influence 
French poetry ripened at once into maturity. As the 
founder and chief of a new school, Malherbe had of course 
his partisans and his opponents. But the mediaeval influ- 
ence had become exhausted in his time, and the Ronsard 
school had worn itself out, partly owing to its undue 
pedantry, partly to the error, constantly recurring in the 
history of literature, of its members forming themselves 
into a kind of sect or clique, claiming exclusive superiority 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 511 

over all others in point of taste and talent. Still their in- 
fluence on the language was immense, and though the 
new school did not participate in that reverence for class- 
ical antiquity, which was the strongest of all intellectual 
peculiarities of the former, it not the less acknowledged 
the advantages literature had derived from an enriched 
vocabulary, though pruning and shaping it for higher and 
nobler purposes, and checking its abuses and excesses. 
All that caprice and fancy had created vanished ; all that 
analogy and necessity had formed remained. Thus the 
words apostrophe, jurisconsulte, precellence, stratageme, ana- 
logie, etc., continued to be used ; astorge, amhie, entelechie, 
ocymore, oligochronien and the like have disappeared. 

If the classical erudition of Ronsard and his followers 
has enriched the French vocabulary with words taken 
from the ancients, the several expeditions of Charles VIII, 
Louis XII, and Francis I, beyond the Alps, and especially 
the alliance of Henry II with Catherine de Medicis had 
no less influence in introducing words from the Italian. 
The prolonged sojourn of the French armies in Italy, dur- 
ing the early years of the sixteenth century, had made the 
Italian language very familiar to the French. The splen- 
dor of the Italian Renaissance in literature and art dazzled 
the French mind, while the regency of Catherine de Medi- 
cis gave the prestige of fashion to every thing Italian. 
This Italian influence was omnipotent at the courts of 
Francis I and Henry II, and the courtiers did their best 
to make it felt throughout the nation. With them the 
gentlemen were doctissime, grandissime, sfre'nissime ; the 
ladies bellissime, blondelettes, and had la bouche vermeillette. 
The most ridiculous opposites, such as terriblement heureux, 
grandement petit, etc., were considered extremely fashion- 
able. Then appeared a number of words hitherto un- 
known, especially such as had reference to court life, the 
army, the fine arts, commerce, and matters of modern in- 
terest. Once the impulse given, it became quite the fash- 
ion with some to ignore good old words in ordinary speech, 
and to substitute others utterly Italian. Thus, your man 
of taste would not deign to say suffire, grand revenu, la 
premiere fois, but called it baster, grosse intrade, la premiere 
volte. Add to this the peculiar mode of pronouncing o 
like on, er like ar, and the shocking affectation of using the 
first person singular pronoun with the verb in the plural, 
and we shall understand the meaning and object of Henri 
Estienne's rebuke : 



512 APPENDIX, 

. . . . " Vous 
Qui lour dement barbarisants 
Toujour s fallions, je venions dites j 
N'estes vous pas de Men grans fous 
De dire chouse au lieu de chose, 
De dire fouse au lieu de fose / 
En la fin vous direz la guarre y 
Place Maubart et frere Piarre ! " 

In noticing this strange habit of altering the pronuncia- 
tion and form of the language through Italian influence, 
it is interesting to find the same thing among the peasantry 
in many districts in France, and consequently in the jargon 
which comic authors put in the mouth of the peasants on 
the stage. In his Don Juan, for instance, Moliere makes 
Pierrot say to Charlotte : " Je sommes pour etre mar its en- 
semble!' As with the words of classical origin, the useful 
ones, introduced through the Italian, have been retained ; 
the others have disappeared from the language. 

The Italian influence vanished in the reign of Henry 
III, but was almost immediately replaced by that of Spain. 
The wars of the League, and the long occupation of French 
soil by Spanish armies toward the end of the sixteenth 
century, spread wide among the French nation the knowl- 
edge of the Castilian speech. This invasion, which lasted 
from the time of Henry IV to the death of Louis XIII, 
left very distinct marks on the French language. For a 
time the court of Henry IV was almost entirely Spanish. 
Sully tells us that the courtiers did nothing but utter Cas- 
tilian cries and exclamations. Regnier laughs at their 
affected phrases, en ma conscience, il en Jaudrait mourir, and 
the like. Spanish influence lasted to the year 1643, and 
though quite sensible in French manners and literature, it 
affected the vocabulary but little. 

By the end of the sixteenth century the mediaeval in- 
fluence was entirely exhausted and no trace remained of 
it as an active and living force. While the purism of Mal- 
herbe was rapidly making its way in French verse, a simi- 
lar and still more healthy influence was being exerted in 
the department of prose by Jean de Balzac (1 594-1654) — 
the elder Balzac, as he is often called, to distinguish him 
from the great novelist of the nineteenth century. In his 
letters, essays, etc., he endeavored to purify the vocabu- 
lary from the foreign intrusions, and to regulate the style 
of ordinary prose-writing, which hitherto had been, except 
in the hands of a few great writers, by no means a con- 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 513 

venient instrument for general literary purposes. These 
various reforming influences were largely assisted by the 
fancy of the time for literary coteries, in which authors 
and ladies of rank played the chief parts, and which were 
also frequented by many statesmen and nobles. The fa- 
mous Madame de Rambouillet was the chief patroness of 
these meetings, at which much minor poetry and many 
short prose pieces were composed or recited. But the 
really great developments of French literature during the 
first half of the seventeenth century were of a very different 
kind. Abundant as had been, during the century preced- 
ing, the exercise given to the intellect, that exercise had 
been chiefly confined to religious disputes on questions of 
church government and a few points of dogma. The un- 
seemly controversies of the earlier religious struggles, and 
the furious preachings of the League, were succeeded by 
religious polemics of a more decent kind and by pulpit 
eloquence which promised the great oratorical displays of 
the latter part of the century. But the thought of the 
new age threw itself still more into purely philosophical 
lines, and into subjects which appeared less dangerous to 
handle. The old scholastic philosophy, which in various 
shapes had satisfied the philosophical appetite of the Mid- 
dle Ages, had been practically dead for a long time, though 
its forms still continued to be taught in colleges and uni- 
versities. The sixteenth century, in this as in other things, 
showing its reverence for classical antiquity, had tried, but 
without success, to satisfy itself with the actual text of the 
Greek philosophers. It is the glory of France to have 
produced, in Rene Descartes (1 596-1650), at once one of 
the earliest and most skillful writers of a clear, elegant, 
and scholarly prose in any modern language, and also the 
first great modern philosopher, taking philosophy in its 
strictest meaning. The Discours de la Methode and the 
Meditations of Descartes treat of the most abstruse subjects 
that can possibly occupy human thought; yet they are 
written in French so clear and simple that any child, as 
far as the mere literal and grammatical meaning goes, can 
understand them at once. Nor did the spirit of discussion 
stop at profane philosophy. Many points of Christian 
theology, which had not been made the subject of the 
great half-political, half-ecclesiastical disputes of the six- 
teenth century, came in for discussion and study. The 
renown, also, which France had already acquired for me- 
moir-writing, did not decline in this age, which supplied in 



514 APPENDIX. 

its turbulent and changeable politics abundance of mate- 
rials for the purpose. Conspicuous among such writers 
is the great Cardinal Richelieu, who, though not exactly 
the founder of the Academie, as he is sometimes called, 
brought it for the first time into a solid and stable condi- 
tion, and transformed it from a mere private club of wits, 
such as the country saw many of, into an institution for- 
mally charged with the overseeing of French language 
and literature. 

The considerations on which the establishment of this 
institution was founded were, among others : " Que notre 
langue, phis parfaite d(fa que pas une des autres vivantes, 
pourroit bien enfin succeder a la Latine, comme la Latine a la 
Grecque, si on prenoit plus de soin quon navoit fait jusquici 
de V elocution ; . . . que les fonctions des acade'miciens seroient 
de nettoyer la langue des ordures quelle avoit contracte'es, ou 
dans la bouche du peuple, ou dans la foule du palais, et dans 
les impuretez de la chicane, ou par les mauvais usages des 
court isans ignorans, ou par Vabus de ceux qui la corrovipent 
en Vecrivant, et de ceux qui disent bien dans les chair es ce qiiil 
faut dire, mais autrement quil ne faut." These considera- 
tions, as well as the work assigned to the Acadimie, were 
in perfect harmony with the policy and character of the 
Cardinal. He loved too much rule and order in every- 
thing not to wish to impose them even on the work of 
imagination ; he possessed too much the instinct of gov- 
ernment not to desire to rule and regulate also language 
and literature. Besides, it gave him an opportunity to 
denounce officially les ordures que la langue avait contractus 
dans la foule du palais ou par les usages des courtisans igno- 
rants, whom he put on a par with the lower classes, as far 
as language was concerned ; and also to take out of the 
hands of the Italian nobles who congregated at the resi- 
dence of Madame de Rambouillet — the headquarters of 
those who pretended to regenerate the language — the su- 
preme direction of matters of taste ; which was a sort of 
victory over the nobility who tried to be independent, and 
a triumph over the foreigners who were opposed to him. 
Moreover, in 1611, Cotgrave had already published in 
London a French-English and English-French Dictionary, 
a large work in folio, and it seemed impossible for France 
to remain behind in the production of a standard work on 
the national language. In 1680 Richelet published his 
Dictionary, which, instead of being simply an alphabeti- 
cal list of words, was the first that was composed on a 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 515 

methodical plan, and indicates the proper and figurative 
meaning of the expressions, justified by common use and 
examples taken from good authors. Ten years later ap- 
peared, in spite of the opposition of the Academie, the 
Dictionnaire universel de Fitretiere, contenant les mots francais 
tant vieux que modernes, a kind of encyclopedia of the lan- 
guage, which had its merits, but obtained greater success 
abroad than at home. 

The Academie francaise was founded in 1635 pour e'tablir 
des regies certaines de la langue, et rendre le langage francais 
non settlement ttegant, mais capable de traiter tous les arts et 
toutes les sciences, and its first Dictionnaire was published in 
1694. It consists of an alphabetical list of words and their 
definitions, illustrated by examples consecrated by usage 
and the practice of the best writers. No word is admitted 
but on the highest authority, the object of the work being, 
according to a contemporary critic, to fixer les e'crivains, 
lorsquils ne savent pas bien si un mot est du be I usage ; sil 
est assez noble dans une telle cir const ance ; ou si itne certaine 
expression na rien de de'fectueux. As such the Academie has 
had undeniably a salutary influence on the language ; only 
its forty members are not infallible, and are liable to error 
as well as the judges of any other tribunal. Such a word 
as they reject remains in the language not the less, while 
such other as they have sanctioned disappears. Still, a 
comparative study of the seven editions of the Dictionary, 
which have appeared at long intervals in 1694, 171 8, 1740, 
1762, 1795, 1835, and 1878, shows the happy influence ex- 
erted by the Acade'mie upon the public, and reciprocally 
by the public upon the Academie. Each edition contains 
words which had been rejected previously, but which the 
persistency of their use have proclaimed correct and in- 
dispensable. Thus, in as much as it takes the Acade'mie 
many years to prepare a new edition of its Dictionary, 
and as on principle it registers only such words as are of 
undoubted national existence, it follows that, in a certain 
sense, the work is already old the day of its publication. 
But this flavor of antiquity is not to be disdained ; it, on 
the contrary, offers important advantages ; and if the offi- 
cial vocabulary does not include the terms which fashion 
creates and which occasionally are consecrated by usage, 
it does not contain either those irregular forms of language, 
admissible, perhaps, in very familiar style, but not destined 
to live — " words which come like shadows, so depart." 
Even the severe criticisms which every new edition of 



516 APPENDIX. 

this official dictionary always draws forth have benefited 
the public by stimulating- individual energies ; and the 
consequence is that no language is better provided with 
dictionaries of every description than the French is to-day. 
As the history of the language after the middle of the 
seventeenth century is purely that of its literature, we close 
with these remarks on its dictionaries, which, in their vari- 
ous spheres, are to some extent the records of its progress. 



CHAPTER II. 

ETYMOLOGY. 

Etymology is usually defined as that department of 
the study of language which traces words to their ele- 
ments, their original forms, and primary significations. 
Similar definitions are given of the terms Philology and 
Linguistics, and we often find them employed one for an- 
other, almost at haphazard, and according to the more or 
less urgent euphonic requirements of the phrase or the 
sentence. Still they admit of a nice distinction ; and, to 
illustrate the difference, we quote from a German writer 
the following ingenious analogy between the philologist 
and the botanist on the one hand, and the linguist and 
the horticulturist on the other. 1 

" Linguistics," he says, " is an historical science, a 
science which has no place except where we are in pos- 
session of a literature and a history. In the absence of 
monuments of a literary culture, there is no room for the 
linguist. In a word, linguistics are applicable to histori- 
cal documents alone. It is very different with philology, 
whose sole object is language itself, whose sole study is 
the examination of language in itself and for itself. The 
historical changes of languages, the more or less acci- 
dental development of the vocabulary, often even their 
syntactical processes, are all but of secondary importance 
for the philologist. He devotes his whole attention to the 
study of the phenomenon itself of articulate speech — a 
natural function, inevitable and determined, from which 
there is no escape, and which, like all other functions, is of 
inexorable necessity. It little matters to the philologist 
that a language may have prevailed for centuries over 
vast empires ; that it may have produced the most glori- 
ous literary monuments, and yielded to the requirements 
of the most delicate and refined intellectual culture. He 
little cares, on the other hand, whether an obscure idiom 

1 A. Schleicher, Sprachvergleichende Untersuchungen. 



518 APPENDIX. 

may have perished without fruits or issue, stifled by other 
tongues, and ignored utterly by the mere linguist. Liter- 
ature is unquestionably a powerful aid to him, thanks to 
which he finds it more easy to grasp the language itself, 
to recognize the succession of its forms, the phases of its 
development — a valuable, but by no means an indispensa- 
ble ally. Moreover, the knowledge of a single language 
is insufficient for the philologist, and herein he is again 
distinguished from the linguist. There is a Latin linguist- 
ic science, for instance, totally independent of the Greek ; 
a Hebrew, equally independent of the Arabic or Assyrian ; 
but we can not speak of a purely Latin or a purely Hebrew 
philology. Philology, as above stated, is nothing unless 
comparative. In fact, we can not explain one particular 
form without comparing it with others. Hence linguist- 
ics may be special, and restricted to one language ; but 
to judge correctly of the constituent elements and the 
structure of a language, we must be previously familiar 
with the phonetics and the structure of a certain number 
of other tongues. The researches of the philologist are 
consequently always and essentially comparative, whereas 
those of the linguist may be quite special." 

It is here that our author introduces his ingenious and 
reasonable comparison. " The philologist," he remarks, 
"is a naturalist. He studies languages as the botanist 
studies plants. The botanist must embrace at a glance 
the totality of vegetable organisms. He inquires into the 
laws of their structure and of their development ; but he 
is in no way concerned with their greater or less intrinsic 
worth, with their more or less valuable uses, the more or 
less acknowledged pleasure afforded by them. In his 
eyes, the first wild flower at hand may have a far higher 
value than the loveliest rose or the choicest lily. The 
province of the linguist is quite different. It is not with 
the botanist, but with the horticulturist that he must be 
compared. The latter devotes his attention only to such 
species that may be the object of special attraction ; what 
he seeks is beauty of form, color, and perfume. A useless 
plant has no value in his eyes ; he has nothing to do with 
the laws of structure or development, and a vegetable 
that in this respect may possess the greatest value, may 
possibly be for him nothing but a common weed." 

The comparison is correct, and, better than any more 
or less lucid explanation, points out that the philologist 
studies in man the phenomenon of articulate speech and 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



519 



its results, just as the physiologist studies such other func- 
tions as locomotion, smell, sight, digestion, or circulation 
of the blood. And not only does the former inquire into 
and determine the normal laws peculiar to this phenome- 
non, but he also discovers and describes the changes 
which are frequently presented during the course of life 
of languages. For languages originate, grow, decay, and 
perish like other living things. They pass first through 
an embryonic period, then reach their highest develop- 
ment, and lastly enter upon a stage of disintegration. It 
is precisely this conception of the life of language that dis- 
tinguishes the modern science of language from the un- 
methodical speculations of the past. 

Considering thus philology as a natural, and linguistics 
as a historical science, we may define etymology as the re- 
sult of both. It was for want of making this distinction that 
etymology of old tried to explain the origin of words ac- 
cording to their apparent resemblance or difference, based 
chiefly on arbitrary relations, superficial analogies, and 
fanciful combinations. Modern etymology, on the con- 
trary, applying the method of the natural sciences, holds 
that words ought to explain themselves, and that, instead 
of inventing special systems for special cases, or what is 
worse, manufacturing words for the express purpose of 
deriving others from them, as was a common practice 
among philologers in former days, we must be guided by 
facts alone, and look upon every conclusion as doubtful 
which is not reached by the test of both phonetics and 
history. 

This process of etymological inquiry may be illustrated 
by a suitable example. Taking the word bachelier, for in- 
stance, which corresponds to the English word " bache- 
lor," and to which various origins have been assigned, we 
find it in thirteenth century French to be written bacheler ; 
in eleventh and twelfth century French, baceler ; in early 
Provengal, baccalar ; and in Merovingian Latin, baccalarins, 
from baccalia, which was derived from bacca, in classical 
Latin vacca, " a cow." Curious as this origin is, and little 
flattering as it may seem, perhaps, to unmarried men in 
general, and college men in particular, who could wish 
for a nobler line of ancestry to the title which adorns or 
is to adorn their name, it is not the less certain that this 
is its real pedigree, as we shall now show by the tests re- 
ferred to above. 

The change of v to b, so common in modern languages, 



520 APPENDIX. 

existed also in Latin, especially in words of Celtic origin. 
Thus Pliny writes bettonica for vettonica, a word imported 
from Gaul, now called in French betoine ; and Petronius, 
who wrote in the first century, and was a Gaul by birth, 
writes berbecem for vervecem, in French brebis, whence we 
find later on berbecarius, shortened to bercarius, from which 
we have the French berger. In the same way we find 
bacca for vacca as early as the fourth century, and in Mero- 
vingian Latin baccalia means " a herd of cows," and bacca- 
larius, " a man attached to the grazing farm ; a cowherd." 

In early Provencal, baccalarius was shortened to bacca- 
lar. In spreading northward, the open sound of a before 
/ and r was much flattened among the Frankish tribes, 
and in their mouths the Latin ar and al became er and el, 
and in the course of time was so written. Thus mare, 
earns, amarus became mer, cher, amer ; and sal, talis, morta- 
lis ; sel, tel, mortel. In early French, also, the ace often 
lost one e, and accomplir, for instance, from the Latin accom- 
plere, was then written with one c only. In the same way 
accoster, from accostare, became acoster ; accroire, from ac- 
credere, acreire ; accouder, from accubitare, acouder ; and by 
analogous changes baccalar or bacalar became baceler, 
sometimes even written with a k, in which form we find it 
during the eleventh and twelfth centuries in northern 
French, and especially in the dialect of Picardie. 

The Latin c, as is believed, was generally pronounced 
k before all vowels, except before an i followed by an- 
other vowel, in which case it was pronounced like z, tz, or 
tch, somewhat like the Italian ce and ci, or the English ch 
in such words as cheap, churl, chin, 1 which was the Nor- 
man mode of pronouncing the Anglo-Saxon c. Already 
in Merovingian formulas we find unzias for uncias, and 
ever since the beginning of the tenth century the ch gradu- 
ally replaces the c in ancient manuscripts, indicating the 
prevailing mode of articulating that letter. Thus the 
Latin caro becomes chair in French ; caput, chef ; canis, 
chien ; caminus, chemin ; cab alius, cheval ; camclus, chameau ; 
capellum,chapeau ; causa, chose ; bucca, bouche ; f urea, four che, 
etc., etc. ; and in the same way baccalarius, baccalar, baceler, 
became gradually written and pronounced bacheler. In 
this form the word was introduced into England in the 
middle of the thirteenth century, and is still so pronounced 
in English, though in the sixteenth century it was changed 

1 In Anglo-Saxon ceap, ceorl, cinne. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



521 



into bachelor, probably through a misconception of the ter- 
mination er, which, being taken, as it would seem, for 
the Teutonic suffix er, in Latin or, was made to conform 
to the latter, while in modern French the termination ier 
continued to indicate its real origin, the Latin suffix arius 
being often thus contracted, as primarius, premier ; carpen- 
tarius, charpentier ; scutarius, e'cuyer ; distinctly showing, 
together with the foregoing changes and permutations, 
the gradual transformation of baccalarius into bachelier. 

If, now, we apply the test of history, we will find that 
the Latin word vacca, which is found written bacca as early 
as the fourth century, constantly took the latter form in 
Merovingian Latin. 

Omnes bacca catenarum confracte ceciderunt. 

Gregorius Turr., lib. i, cap. 2. 

Sometimes the word occurs spelled with one c only. 

Vineae vero habeant dignitatem ut mea propriae, ubicumque 
fuerint, si ibi inveniantur oves ; bacce, seu porci, occidantur me 
teste. Hist. Finnatensi, lib. iii, cap. 27 (Ducange). 

In a grant of 895, A. D., we read : 

Cedimus res proprietatis nostrae ad monasterium quod voca- 
tur Bellus Locus cum ipsa baccalaria et mansis. 

Chartulary of Beaulieu, p. 95. 

The name of baccalaria, which in Roman Gaul original- 
ly meant " a grazing farm," from baccalia, " cattle," gradu- 
ally acquired the meaning of a cultivated piece of land, 
the arable part of which could be plowed in one day 
with twenty oxen, and having ten dwellings on it, called 
mas, thus described in the Chartularies of Charlemagne : 

Est mansum vel mansus quem par bourn cotidie arare po- 
test, et sufficit duobus bobus in anno massa fundus, heredium, 
unde quis se et familiam suam tueri possit, et vectigal aut censum 
domino referre. 

This is further shown from a will of Turpio, bishop of 
Limoges, 882, A. D., in which we find the following item : 

Dono etiam baccalariam quae est in ipsa villa cum campis et 
vineis et pratis et omnibus quae ad ipsum alodum pertinent. 

This donation is thus referred to in the Tabularium 
Bellilocense in Lemovicibus, Charta 1 3 : 

Dedit eis baccalariam quae^ecem in se mansos continere vide- 
batur. 

35 



522 APPENDIX. 

In Carlovingian texts which have lists of serfs, we find 
the term baccalarius, and its feminine baccalaria, applying 
also to young persons not less than sixteen years of age, 
and engaged in field labor. A Descriptio mancipiorum or 
inventory of the abbey of St. Victor at Marseilles, in the 
ninth century, gives such a list of serfs living on a colonica, 
or piece of land tilled by a colonicus, which reads as follows : 

Colonica in Campania ; 
Stephanus, colonicus, 
Dara, uxor, 

Dominicus, films baccalarius, 
Martina, filia baccalaria. 
Vera, filia annorum xv. 

Oiartulary of St. Victor, ii, p. 633. 

When Baccalarius was the name given to cow-boys on 
the farm, it naturally became also that of the camp-follow- 
ers who had charge of the cattle ; and as this duty gen- 
erally devolved upon persons who had become possessed 
of a little piece of land, the size and tenure of which im- 
posed certain feudal duties on the possessor, it so hap- 
pened that in course of time the name of baceler or bache- 
ler readily acquired the signification of one who from 
poverty or lack of proper age was not able to rank as a 
knight. Thus we read of — 

Castrum adolescentum quod dicitur de bakelers. 

Albertus Aquensis, lib. 3, cap. 26. 

Hoirs fu de la conte* de St. Paul, mais povres bacelers estoit 
tant COU ses oncles vesqui. Theobaldo de Domno Medardo. 

A un chevalier baceler 

Ki par povrete" vot aller 

Droit en Pulle a Robert Wiscart, etc. 

Philippus Mouskes in Hist. Francor. 

Quant je reving a ma nef, je mis en ma petite barge un es- 
cuier que je fis chevalier, et deux moult vaillans bachelers. 

Joinville, 214. 

Dedans avoit bonne chevalerie qui la gardoient et defen- 
doient (la ville de Rennes) : premierement le vicomte de Rohan, 
le sire de Laval, messire Charles de Dynant et plusieurs autres 
bons chevaliers et 6cuyers. Et y estoit adoncques un jeune 
bachelier qui s'appeloit messire Bertran du Guesclin, qui depuis 
fut moult renomme au royaume de France . . . et se combattit, le 
siege tenant par devant Rennes, a un chevalier d'Angletere. 

Froissart, i, p. 369. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH, 523 

Sire, je ne suis qu'un pauvre bachelier dans le metier des 
armes. Du Guesclin. 

Thus the name in feudal custom takes the sense of " a 
lower vassal," who for want of means is unable to lead 
a body of retainers into the field — or to use the technical 
phrase, was unable de lever banniere, and compelled there- 
fore to serve under the banner of another. 

Quand un bachelier a grandement servi et suivi la guerre, et 
qu'il a terre assez, et qu'il puisse avoir gentilshommes pour ac- 
compagner sa banniere, il peut licitement lever banniere, et non 
autrement. Le pere Daniel. 

In the thirteenth century the title of bachelier was given 
to those "gentilshommes " who by some great feat of 
bravery had earned the military belt and golden spurs ; 
and that of bachelier a" armes to him who, the first time he 
appeared in a tournament, had come out the victor. 

By this time the title of bachelier had become one of 
honor and distinction, including the idea of " youth, novi- 
tiate, training, apprenticeship," and with this meaning, 
which constantly attaches to the word, the same title 
was given to the junior members of certain guilds and 
trade corporations of which the regular members were 
called jures. In the Royal Ordinances of France, under 
the year 1366, we read : 

Pierre Triel et Pierre la Postole, jurez en la ville de Paris 
oudit mestier de boulengerie ; Gerat de Breban et Jehan Le- 
comte, bacheliers oudit mestier, etc. 

And, farther on : 

Toutes et quantefoiz il a este necessite de pourveoir a. 1'ofrice 
vacant d'aucun jure, les autres jurez desdiz mestiers superestans, 
a. grant et muere deliberacion, nomment et eslisent entre eulx 
sans faveur l'un des bacheliers, etc. Ordinat. reg, Francor., page 709. 

The Church also had its bachelers, baccalarius ecclesice y 
bachelier d'eglise, and the name was given to ecclesiastics 
at the lowest stages of their training, during which cer- 
tain minor duties were assigned to them. 

Finita Missa in exitu Ecclesise incipitur Antiphona O Mar- 
tine ; Sequitur Litania Salvator mundi, et debet dici a duobus 
baccalariis. Ordin, Abbatio S. Laurentii Dioec-Autiss., ann. 1286. 

The degree of Bachelier-es-Arts was instituted by Pope 
Gregory IX, 1235 a. D., to be conferred on college stu- 



524 APPENDIX. 

dents who, after completing the prescribed course, con- 
tinued their studies for the degree of Master. Soon after, 
both degrees were conferred by the University of Paris. 
Previous to their institution, no other distinctions were 
recognized in the schools than those of master and pupil. 
The branches of literary and scientific knowledge taught 
in the colleges of the Middle Ages, and which were spe- 
cially denominated the Arts, were considered as divided 
into two great classes — the first, or more elementary of 
which, comprehending grammar, rhetoric, and logic, was 
called the Trivium; the second, comprehending music, 
arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, the Quadrivium. 1 
John of Salisbury speaks of this system of studying the 
sciences as an ancient one in his day. 2 " The Trivium and 
Quadrivium," he says, in his work entitled Metalogicus, 
" were so much admired by our ancestors, in former ages, 
that they imagined they comprehended all wisdom and 
learning, and were sufficient for the solution of all ques- 
tions, and the removing of all difficulties ; for whoever 
understood the Trivium could explain all manner of books 
without a teacher; but he who was farther advanced, and 
was master also of the Quadrivium, could answer all ques- 
tions and unfold all the secrets of nature." Such were 
the beginnings of college studies in the Middle Ages, and 
such were the usual attainments of college graduates at 
the time the title of Bachelor of Arts was introduced into 
England. Being used by the Normans in all the various 
meanings it had then on the continent, it readily took in 
the new meaning which it had acquired in France, and 
both degrees in the Arts were conferred at Oxford as 
early as the middle of the thirteenth century. 8 

A six to eight years' course of* study in actual attend- 

1 The seven arts, so classified, used to be thus enumerated in a Latin 
Hexameter: 

Lingua, Tropus, Ratio, Numerus, Tonus, Angulus, Astra ; 
or, with definitions subjoined, in two still more singularly constructed verses : 

Gram, loquitur, Dia. vera docet, Rhet. verba colorat, Mus. cadit, Ar. nu- 
merat, Geo. ponderat, Ast. colit astra. 

2 See page 161. 

3 Entering upon the first degree was called at Oxford " Commemoration," 
as the act of calling to remembrance by some special solemnity the distinguished 
honor conferred ; at Cambridge it was called " Commencement," from the fact 
that it marked the beginning of a course of professional studies to which Bache- 
lors alone were admitted. The latter name has remained current in America to 
designate the anniversary occasions when this degree is conferred upon college 
students who have completed their prescribed course, whether they are to follow 
a course of professional studies or not. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 525 

ance, or its equivalent ascertained by examination, was 
then exacted as the condition of the first degree, after 
which the second degree was granted at the end of three 
years more to Bachelors of good standing, upon presenta- 
tion of one or more theses, which the candidate had to 
support by argument in public before a board of Academic 
examiners. As any graduate present could join in the de- 
bate, discussion was often very lively, and apt to embar- 
rass the candidate unless he had some previous training 
in the art of public speaking and debating, for which some 
Bachelors societies were then famous : 

J'ai des forces, du feu, de l'esprit, des Etudes, 

Et jamais sur les banes on ne vit bachelier 

Qui sut plus a propos interrompre et crier. L'Abbe de Villiers. 

In the sense of ** an unmarried man," which is the most 
general meaning of bachelor in English, the word is also of 
Norman importation. Robert of Gloucester and Chaucer 
wrote still bacheler, which was then the current form, and 
only in the sixteenth century erroneously changed into 
bachelor ; but in whatever manner spelled, or with what- 
ever meaning, in France as well as England, the idea of 
" aspiring youth " is always underlying : 

Esleece-toi Jouvence en ta bachelerie was translated in the 
Dialogues de S. Gre'goire, liv. iv, chap, iv, " Laetare Juvenis in 
adolescentia tua." 

In a chartulary of St. Vincent, 1243 A. D., we find un- 
married men spoken of as bachelers : 

Les jeunes enfans a marier, autrement appelez bachelers ou 
varletz a marier. 

And not only did the term include unmarried men, but 
in an analogous form also spinsters : 

Adolecentes non conjugati, et juvenculae nondum nuptae, 
bachelers et bachelettes vulgo nuncupabantur. Ducange. 

Beu qu'il eust, et rendu le hanap a. la bachelette gentille, feit 
une lourde exclamation. Rabelais, Pantagruel, liv. iv, chap. li. 

Encore en Picardie bachelier et bachelette sont appel^s les 
jeunes gareons de seise et dixhuit ans, et filles pretes a marier. 

Fauchet (1529-1601). 

The word may still be heard occasionally in the country 
dialects of Picardie and Basse Normandie with the same 
meaning. 



526 APPENDIX. 

Toward the end of the Middle Ages, bachelier in the 
sense of a graduate in a faculty was Latinized, according 
to the fashion of the times, into baccalaureus by the univer- 
sity clerks, who also gave to this new-formed word the 
etymology bacca-lauri, thus alluding to Apollo's bay. After 
inventing baccalaureus — found for the first time in De Cle- 
mengis, de Studio TheoL, they made out of it baccalaureatus, 
which was then turned into baccalaureate in which form 
it was afterward imported into England. It is hardly 
necessary to add that neither this etymology, nor that 
which derives the word from bas chevalier, has any foun- 
dation. 

It is evident that in this brief and elementary chapter 
we can not trace the history of any other word as far or 
as searchingly as we have that of bachelor ; this indeed 
would be superfluous since full information of the kind 
is obtainable from larger works on the subject. It is 
rather for the purpose of showing how every word in 
the language may be analyzed, and of explaining the 
plan on which modern etymological and historical dic- 
tionaries have been of late constructed. 1 Besides, it is 
of more immediate importance to the student first to be- 
come acquainted with the general character of the French 
vocabulary, the various elements of which it is composed, 
and the phonetic changes that have turned them into 
French. Merely noticing the changes of form and mean- 
ing of any given word, as recorded in dictionaries, inter- 
esting as it may be, as anything is interesting that belongs 
to language, would be of but slender benefit to the stu- 
dent unless a previous knowledge of the growth and for- 
mation of the language to which such word belongs 
enables him also to take a general view of the causes and 
circumstances that have led to these changes. If not, it 
would be like viewing the dry plants of a herbarium, 
without a reference to the living vegetable world from 
which they are collected. It is, therefore, only when 
familiar with such details of a nation's history as have 
bearing on its language, that he can profitably enter on 
the study of its words, and consult etymological diction- 
aries to advantage. 

From the evidences collected in the preceding chapter, 

1 We here refer especially to Littre's Dictionnaire de la Langue francaise, 
and the New English Dictionary on historical principles, founded mainly on the 
materials collected by the Philological Society, edited by James A. H. Murray, 
now in course of publication. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



527 



the student has probably already come to the conclusion 
that whatever have been the vicissitudes which the lan- 
guage has gone through in the course of many ages, and 
however different its features have grown from those of 
its parent, French is still in substance Latin. In this he 
will be confirmed by comparing the following versions 
into French and Latin of a passage in St. Luke which has 
already served us elsewhere for similar illustration. Con- 
sidering that twenty centuries have elapsed since the lan- 
guage of Rome found its way into Gaul, and the many 
channels through which it has passed before assuming its 
present form, it may seem even astonishing that such is 
still the family likeness between the Ancient Latin and 
the Modern French, that one conversant with either finds 
but little difficulty in understanding the other : 



LATIN. 

12 Quando ille appropin- 
quavit portae pagi, vidit mor- 
tuum portari, filium unicum 
matris quae vidua erat ; et turba 
numerosa hominum pagi erat 
cum ilia. 

13 Dominus illam vidit, et 
plenus commiseratione pro ilia, 
illi dixit : Ne plores. 

14 Appropinquavit, et teti- 
git feretrum. Et qui ilium 
portabant, restiterunt, et dixit: 
Juvenis, ego tibi illud dico : 
Surge. 

15 Et mortuus resedit, et 
ccepit loqui ; et Jesus ilium red- 
didit suae matri. 

16 Et omnes fuerunt affecti 
formidine ; et glorificabant 
Deum, dicentes : Certe magnus 
propheta surrexit in medio nos- 
trum, et Deus visitavit suum 
populum. 

17 Et rumor de eo cucurrit 
in tota Judaea, et in tota vicini- 
tate. 



FRENCH. 

12 Quand il approcha de la 
porte du bourg, il vit qu'on por- 
tait un mort, fils unique d'une 
mere qui etait veuve, et une 
troupe nombreuse d'hommes du 
bourg etait avec elle. 

13 Le Seigneur la vit, et, 
plein de commiseration pour 
elle, il lui dit : Ne pleure pas. 

14 II approcha et toucha la 
Mere. Et ceux qui la portaient 
s'arreterent, et il dit: Jeune 
homme, je te le dis : Leve- 
toi. 

15 Et le mort se rassit et se 
mit a parler ; et Jesus le rendit 
a sa mere. 

16 Et tous furent saisis d'ef- 
froi j et ils glorifiaient Dieu, di- 
sant : Certes, un grand prophete 
a surgi au milieu de nous, et 
Dieu a visite son peuple. 

17 Et le bruit en courut dans 
toute la Judee et dans tout le 
voisinage. 



Of one hundred thirty-two words forming the French 
text, one hundred twenty-seven are derived from the Lat- 



528 APPENDIX. 

in, four from old High German, and one from the Celtic. 
Those that are of German origin are bourg} troupe? biere? 

1 Bourg, bourc, burg, burc, bore, bor, in all of which forms the word is found, 
is one of the oldest Teutonic words in the language. Originally it meant a place 
of shelter, a small fort ; what we would call a block-house. In Isidore of Seville 
the word has already got its modern sense. " Burgus," he says, " est domorum 
congregatio, quae muro non clauditur." It is the English borough, boro, bury, 
found in the composition of many geographical names. See pages 187 and 
466. From burgensis, a form found in Merovingian documents, we get bour- 
geois, in English burgess, " a dweller in a bourg, a citizen." 

Li bochier d'Orliens prennent sor chascune beste six deniers, et metent en 
une boete a defendre eels de lor boro contre autres genz. — Livre de Justice, p. 7. 

Ici sunt li quatre livres des Dialogues Gregoire, lo papa del bors de Rome, 
des miracles des peres de Lumbardie. — Dial, de S. Greg. 

El terns alsiment de eel meisme prince, quant Dacius li veske del bore de 
Moilans, demeneis por la cause de la foid, s'en aloi al bore de Constantinoble, 
dunkes vint-il a Corinthe. — Ibid. 

All these extracts show the word bor, bore, borg to correspond to the Latin 
word urbs. " Ejusdem quoque principis tempore, cum Datius Mediolanensis 
urbis episcopus, causa fidei exactus, ad Constantinopolitanam urbem pergeret, 
Corinthum devenit." 

2 Troupe, troupeau, " a troop, a flock, a multitude, a great quantity." In 
Gothic, troppe ; in Old German, trupp ; in Low Latin, troppus. "Si enim in 
troppo de jumentis illam ductricem aliquis involaverit " Lex Allemanorum, 7. 
From the primitive German the French derive the adverb trop which for- 
merly had not its present meaning, but rather applied to what may be counted. 
Thus, trop de gens {troupe de gens) corresponded to the English form '' a number 
of people." Later on it took the meaning of beaueoup, which itself is only a 
modification of grand coup, as : Le roi eut grant coup de la terre du comte. This 
sense of grand is still seen in other phrases, as un beau mangeur, and the like. 

En Nervie, dont je suis nez, 

A un homme (ceci tenez 

Pour verite' et pour certain) 

Qui est de si grant sainte plain, 

Et si juste, sanz touz pechiez, 

Qu'il n'est grief mal dont entechiez 

Soit homme ou femme, si le voit, 

Que tout gari ne Ten renvoit ; 

Et ce a-il fait a trop (beaueoup) de gent, 

Sanz prendre salaire n'argent. 
Miracle de Saint Valentin, Theatre francais au moyen age. 
Even now trop retains the meaning of " truly, fully, with certainty" in cer- 
tain locations, as : Je ne sais trop si vous pourrez reussir. On ne peut pas trop 
dire si cela est r6ellement. 

3 Biere, a bier or litter on which a body is borne, in Old German bara, from 
baran, " to bear, to carry " ; in the same way as the Latin made feretrum from 
fero. Uter, King of the Bretons, having fallen sick, caused himself to be car- 
ried in a litter at the head of his army : 

A ses homes dist en riant : 

Mius voel jo en biere jesir 

Et en longe enfrete langir, 

Que estre sains et en vertu, 

Et este a deshonor venqu. — Rom. de Brut, ii. 

Les nafrez (blesses) vout toz que Tom querre, 

Si s'enporte Torn soef en bierre 

A Roem por medecinier, 

Por garir e por respasser. — Chron. des dues de JVorm., ii. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 529 

saisir? and that of Celtic, bruit? This small proportion of 
Celtic and Teutonic words, as compared to those of Latin 
origin, is even far in excess to that presented by a full 
vocabulary of the language ; and this paucity of foreign 
terms, which is a leading feature of the French language, 
may be accounted for by the following considerations : 

The Latin, as spoken in Gaul, was that of the great mass 
of Romans of all classes who lived there and whose num- 
ber constantly increased. The Celtic aristocracy, and such 
as had any claim to respectability, endeavored to speak 
the language well, and whatever Celtic word was retained 
among them or adopted by the Romans themselves, either 
from fancy or necessity, was at once Latinized in such a 
manner as to make few ever think whether such a word 
was of Latin or Celtic origin. In this respect we may be 
guided by our own experience in reference to foreign 
words that have been introduced within our own time, 
and, being useful or necessary, have become naturalized 
among us. If Latin was at first pronounced badly by 
those who ventured on its use, it was what we see to-day 
all the world over among the uneducated, and especially 
the country people who, speaking a vulgar patois, improve 
notwithstanding, generation after generation, in language 
and in accent. The circumstances, of course, were not 
then the same as now, but improvement in speech will al- 
ways go on wherever a rude idiom exist side by side with 
one more cultivated. In this respect the Latin had all the 
advantage. When introduced into Gaul it had attained 
its broadest development and its highest degree of culture ; 
it presented a homogeneous and regular system, a perfect 
unity, and at the same time a fixity of form which even 
the hardest use, has never succeeded in entirely obliter- 
ating. Under such circumstances a language best resists 
the pressure of outside influences and the admission of 
many foreign terms into its vocabulary. In all languages 
such words have lasted the longest as had a greater num- 

1 Saisir, " to seize, to grasp," from the Old High German sazjan " to give 
possession of land " ; hence bizazjan, in German besitzen, " to possess." In medi- 
aeval Latin docufrients we find the word sacire, meaning " to take possession 
of another's property." " Alterius rem ad proprietatem sacire y 

Li reis Achab chalt pas levad e vers la vigne alad pur la vigne saisir e tenir 
en sa main. — Livre des Hois, p. 402. 

Achab .... surrexit et descendebat in vineam Naboth Jezraelitce ut pos- 
sideret earn. 

2 Bruit, noise, tumult, is in Breton, br&d j in Welsh, brwth ; in Scotch, 
bruidhinn ; and in Irish, bruidhean, all with the same meaning. 



530 APPENDIX. 

ber of compounds and derivatives of their own kin around 
them. Any word not so surrounded seems to be lacking 
in support ; it stands, so to say, isolated in the midst of 
other words to which it bears no relation, and hence is 
most exposed to be lost out of common usage. This will 
explain why words of Celtic and Teutonic origin have 
constantly dropped out of Modern French, and why the 
main bulk of its vocabulary is derived from the idiom of 
Cicero and Virgil. 

No monument whatsoever of the ancient Celtic lan- 
guage has come down to us, nor does history refer to 
any work written in that language. The Druids 1 alone 
could have left some writing, but every kind of written 
composition was forbidden as sacrilegious, and the trans- 
mission of religious principles was the object of an initia- 
tion full of mysteries. It is this absence of all written 
documents 2 which prevents us from knowing anything 
certain of the difference between the Gaulish and Gaelic 
dialects which Sulpicius Severus mentions as being so 
distinct even in the fourth century as not to be mistaken 
the one from the other. All we know of those idioms con- 
sists of about a hundred words, which the Romans had 
borrowed from the Gauls, and which, according to Ennius, 
Caesar, Varro, Livy, Pliny, and others, were current in 
their time in Latin. Among these we may mention sagum* 

1 Druid, in Latin druida, in Celtic Derouyd, is derived from the words De y 
" God," and rouyd, " speaking." Derottyd, therefore, means "one who speaks of 
the Gods " ; an interpreter of the Gods." The Greek word OeoKoyos has literally 
the same meaning. (Compare pages 25-30.) 

8 Jacob Grim quotes two magic formulae from Marcellus Empiricus, who 
lived in the fourth century, and was a native of Bordeaux. If really Celtic, 
they are the only specimens thus far discovered. The passage reads as follows : 
"Digitis quinque manus ejusdem cujus partis oculum sordicula aliqua fuerit 
ingressa, percurrens et pertractans oculum, ter dices: Tetunc resonco bregan 
gresso. Ter deinde spues, terque facies. Item ipso oculo clauso qui carminatus 
erit, patientem perfricabis, et ter carmen hoc dices, et toties spuens : In mon 
dercomarcos axatison. Scito remedium hoc in hujusmodi casibus esse mirificum. 
Si arista vel qua?libet sordicula oculum fuerit ingressa, occluso alio, oculo, ipso- 
que qui dolet patefacto, et digitis medicinali ac pollice leviter pertracto, ter per 
singula despuens dices : Os Gorgonis basio." — Marc. Emp., Medici principes, 
Henri Estienne, p. 278, D. 

3 From sagum, the Roman overcloak, the old French made saye : 

Bref le villain ne s'en voulut aller 

Pour si petit, mais encore il me happe 

Saye et bonnet, chausses, pourpoinct et cappe ; 

De mes habits en effect il pilla 

Tous les plus beaux ; et puis s'en habilla 

Si justement, qu'a le veoir ainsi estre, 

Vous l'eussiez prins, en plain jour, pour son maistre. 

Marot, Epistre au roy y pour avoir estS dirobe. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



531 



alauda, arpennis, beccus, cippus, cervisia, leuca, and bracca ; 
which in French became sate, sayon, sayette, alouctte^- ar- 
pent? bee* cep* cervoise? lieue? braie, and brayette? Fortu- 

1 Alouette, from the old French aloe, aloue, which had the same meaning: 

Quant Yaloe prist a chanter 

Se commencerent a armer. — Chron. des dues de Norm., i, p. 235. 

Caesar, having raised at his own expense a legion in Transalpine Gaul, 
gave it first the name of galerita, " skylark," which he afterward changed into 
alauda, being the name of that bird in the language of the Gauls who com- 
posed the legion. 

" Ab illo galerita appellata quondam, postea, gallico vocabulo, etiam legio- 
ni nomen dederat alauda." — Plin., lib. ii, ch. 371. " Qua fiducia, ad legiones 
quas a Republica acceperat, alias privato sumptu addidit. Unam etiam ex 
Transalpinis conscriptam, vocabulo quoque gallico alauda enim appellabatur, 
quam disciplina, cultuque romano institutam et ornatam, postea universam civi- 
tate donavit." — Sueton, Vita Ccesar. " Avis galerita quae gallice alauda dici- 
tur. — Marcellus Empiricus, c. xxix. " Avis corydalus, quam alaudam vocamus." 
— Greg. Turr., lib. iv. 

2 Arpent, in Latin arpenis and aripenis is stated by Columella to be of 
Gallic origin. " Galli candetum appellant in areis urbanis spatium c pedum ; 
in agrestibus autem pedum cl, quod aratores candetum nominant, semijugerum 
quoque aripenem vocant." — Colum., v, I. 

3 Suetonius informs us that Antonius Primus, one of Vespasian's generals, 
a native of Toulouse, was called beccus, when a boy, on account of his big nose. 
" Cui Tolosae nato cognonem in pueritia Becco fuerat ; id valet gallinacei ros- 
trum." — Suet., Vita Vitell. 

4 Cep or ceps, originally two or more sprouts growing out of the same trunk. 
The name was given to a frame made of two pieces of wood, into the openings 
of which the legs of a person may be set fast, formerly used as a temporary pun- 
ishment for petty crimes and misdemeanors. In English, " stocks." " Cipptis 
est quilibet truncus, et specialiter truncus ille quo crura latronum coarctantur ; 
gallice, cep." — Isidore de Seville, Origines. 

6 Cervoise, now Here, Pliny tells us was a Celtic word. Et frugam quidem 
haec sunt in usu medico ; ex iisdem frunt et potus ; zythum in yEgypto, ccelia et 
ceria in Hispania, cervisia et plura genera in Gallia. — Plin., lib. xxii, c. 25. 
Nus cervoisiers ne puet ne ne doit faire cetvoise fors de yaue et de grain, e'est k 
savoir, d'orge, de mestuel et de dragie. — Livre des me'tiers, p. 29. 

Vostre aiol Robert de Faleise 

Soleit mult bien bracier cerveise. — Chron. des dues de Norm. 

6 The Roman measure of distance was the mile, composed of eight stadia, 
each of 125 paces or 625 Roman feet ; that of the Gauls was the league, lieue, in 
Breton lev, in Scotch leig, in Irish leige. " In Nilo flumine, sive in ripis ejus, 
solent naves funibus trahere ; certa habentes spatia quae appellant funiculos, ut 
labori defessorum recentia trahentium colla succedant. Nee mirum si unaquae- 
que gens certa viarum spatia suis appellet nominibus, cum et Latini, mille passus, 
et Galli leucas et Persae parasangas, et rastas universa Germania ; atque in sin- 
gulis nominibus diversa mensura sit." — S. Jerome Comment. Joel, c. iii. This 
is further confirmed by Hesychius : Aeiyr], (ierpov rl ya\driKov. Isidore de Se- 
ville says in his Origines, ch. xvi : "Mensuras viarum milliaria dicimus, Graeci 
stadia, Galli leucas." 

7 Braies, in English " breeches," was a word long in use in old French : 

Rices dras ot Partonopeus, 

Et li rois de France autretels. 

Ne vos quier or faire devise 

Ne de braies ne de cemise, 

Ne de braiels, ne de lasnieres. — Partenopeus de Blois, ii, p. 19a 



532 APPENDIX. 

nately for our studies, however, our knowledge of the 
Celtic vocabulary is not confined to the words which 
Greek and Latin authors give us as of Celtic origin, for 
the language survived the Roman, the Frankish, and the 
Saxon conquests, and we find it still as a living language in 
Low Brittany, the ancient Armorica in France, as well as 
in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales in Great Britain. Though 
everywhere reduced to the condition of patois only, and 
more or less altered by the contact with French and Eng- 
lish, and the introduction of French or English words, 
the alteration is not so great as to disguise the primi- 
tive form of most of the words which Greek and Latin 
authors mention as belonging to these dialects. Thus 
in case of any word which shows no affinity with either 
Latin, Greek, or Francic, its true origin may often be 
traced by its corresponding form being found in one 
or more of these Celtic dialects. In making such com- 
parisons, it will be found that the Scotch and Irish, called 
Gaelic by those who speak the language, have a closer 
resemblance to each other than to the Welsh, called 
Cymraeg, and the Low-Breton, called Brezonec or Breyzad, 
which are more alike, either because the former are 
derived from the original Celtic, and the latter from the 
Gallic, or because the Welsh and Low-Breton have be- 
come assimilated by the number of British people who 
crossed the channel during the fifth and sixth centuries to 
escape the fury of the Saxon invaders. 1 

French words which by this test have been found to 
be of undoubted Celtic origin are aluine? now obsolete, 

Por estanchier faire ma plaie, 

Copai lou tivuel de ma braie 

Et ma chemise an detranchai. — Dolopathos, p. 303. 

Brague for brazes may still be heard in the western departments of France, 
where that article of dress has kept up its ancient form among the country peo- 
ple. Ammianus Marcellinus calls the Celtic soldiers braccati. Suetonius refers 
to the bracca when speaking of Caesar's disposition toward the Gauls. See page 
159. Diodorus Siculus, speaking of the inhabitants of Gaul, says : Xpwvrou 8e 
ava^vpiffiv as iiceTvoi fipaxas ttakovffiv. 

1 See page 63. 

* " Absinthium, vulgus vocat de Valuine ; alias appellatur du fort, propter 
insignem amaritudinem. Quidam tamen nomen latinum imitantes vocant de 
i'absinse." — Charles Etienne, De re hortensi, p. 55. 

5 H 8e K€\rtK^] vdpdos yevvarai fxkv iv ro7s Kara Atyvpiav "AXireffiv, eirtxwpfos 
wuofxa<Tfi€vr} aAiovyyia. — Dioscorides, I, vii, p. 9. 

Si est-il expedient adoucir la durete du lenguage et dissimuler Tausterite 
d'icelluy, come quant Ton veut guerir un enfant des verz, lui donnant pour ce 
une medecine d'a/uine, et l'attrempe-on avec du succre pour les garder de sentir 
1'amertume de Valuine. — Bonivard, Advis et devis des lengues. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



533 



arpent, bttoine, 1 bouleau? branche, bruyere, carriere, cep, co- 
quelicot? dune,* fagot, gres, greve, gravier, guirlande, marne* 
mine, motte, peautre? pldtre? roc, ruche, samole* obsolete, 
soc, tan, verne now called aune. All these terms refer to 

1 " Vettonica dicitur in Gallia, in Italia serratula." — Liv., xxv, ch. viii. 
Remede por la dolor de chief. — Raez si le peil de la teste, puis si prenez de 

vetoine plein pot, si quassiez o le vin, et puis si en oingnez la teste o le jus aus- 
tresi chaut come il porra souffrir, et si li metez l'emplastre sur le chief en une 
coiffe linge dessus, et si lessiez estre treis jors. — MS. de M. D., quoted by Roque- 
fort, gloss, art. Ve'toine. 

2 " Gaudet frigidis sorbus, et magis etiam betulla. Gallica hsec arbori, mira- 
bili candore atque tenuitate terribilis magistratuum virgis, eadem surculis fiexilis, 
item corbium costis. Bitumen ex ea Galliae excoquunt." — Liv. xvi, ch. xviii. 

3 Fastidium stomachi relevat papaver silvestre, quod gallice calocatonos dici- 
tur, tritum et ex lacte caprino potui datum. — Marc. Empiric, De remediis em~ 
piricis. 

4 Plutarch informs us that near the river Arar {SaSne) is a height which was 
called Lougdounon, and had received that name on the following occasion : Mo- 
moros and Atopomaros, who had been dethroned by Sezeroneos, undertook by 
the advice of an oracle to build a city on that height. They had already marked 
out the foundations, when a flock of ravens came and alighted on the trees. 
Momoros, who was an expert in augurship, gave the name of Lougdounon to the 
city, inasmuch as the Gauls called the raven lougon and a height dounon. — Aovyov 
yap tt) fftyobv 8ia\€KT(i> rbu icSpaKa Kahovai, hovvov Se rbv H-exovra. — Plutarch, Tlepl 
irora/xiav, vi. This city was the Lugdunum of the Romans, now the city of 
Lyons. 

5 " Alia est ratio quam Britannia et Gallia invenere alendi earn {terram) 
ipsa ; quod genus vocant margam. Spissior ubertas in ea intelligitur ; est autem 
quidam terrae adeps, ac velut glandia in corporibus, ibi densante se pinguitudi- 
nis nucleo." — Plin., lib. xvii, 4. Elsewhere, xvii, 8, speaking of the Bretons, 
the author says : " Tertium genus terrae Candida? glischro?nargam vocant." 

6 Peautre or piautre, from which the English " pewter," meant formerly 
" tin," and is now obsolete in French. 

Nuls ne doit faire courroies d'estain, c'est assavoir cloer ne ferrer ne de 
plonc ne de piautre ne de coquilles de poisson ne de bois, a Paris ne ailleurs. — 
Livre des me'tiers, p. 238. 

Abuse* m'a, et faict entendre, 
Tousjours d'ung que c'estoit ung autre ; 
De farine, que c'estoit cendre ; 
D'un mortier, un chapeau de feautre ; 
De viel machefer, que fust peautre. 

Villon, Grand Testament. 

7 In Breton, plastr ; in Welsh, plastyr ; in Scotch, plasdalr ; and in Irish, 
p las da. 

Se uns plastriers envoioit piastre pour metre en ceuvre chies ancun hom, li 
macon qui ceuvre a celui a cui en envoit le piastre doit prendre gai-de par son 
serement que la mesure del piastre soit bone et loiax ; et se il en est en soupecon 
de la mesure, il doit le piastre mesurer, ou faire mesurer devant lui. — Livre des 
me'tiers, p. 109. 

8 Without any description of this plant, Pliny gives us an interesting ac- 
count of its supposed medicinal virtues which, to be brought out to their utmost 
strength, required it to be picked by people on an empty stomach, with the left 
hand, and without looking. The samolus or " water-pimpernel " was a specific 
against murrain in swine and cattle. Iidem (druidse Gallorum) samolum her- 
bam nominavere nascentem in humidis ; et hanc sinistra manu legi a jejunis 
contra morbos suum boumque ; nee respicere legentem. — Plin., xxiv, c. ii. 



534 APPENDIX. 

the earth, to agriculture, trees, shrubs, flowers, minerals, 
etc. Among the words designating animals, birds, fishes, 
and things connected therewith, we find alouette, claie, 1 
cochon, mouton? gourme, gourmette, go eland? pinson? and the 
term dia? which is rather a cry than a word, and which 
teamsters use to make their cattle turn out the road. 

The club-moss (Selago), which has been mistaken for this plant, was a fetish 
of another kind. The man who carried the divine object was secure against all 
misfortune ; and blindness could be cured by the fumes of a few of its leaves, 
which were dried and thrown into the fire. It had to be gathered with a curi- 
ous magical ceremony. The worshiper was dressed in white ; he must go to 
the place barefoot and wash his feet in pure water before approaching the plant. 
No metal might be used in taking it, but after offerings of bread and wine it 
was snatched from the ground with a thievish gesture, the right hand being 
darted under the left arm. The Breton peasants are said to retain their respect 
for the plant. They call it " Vherbe d'or," and the lucky finder still follows the 
fashion of his ancestors ; "pour le cueillir il faut itre nu-pieds et en chemise : 
il s'arrache et ne se coupe pas." 

1 Claie, formerly cloie, cleie ; in Breton, kloued ; in Welsh, clwyd ; in Cor- 
nish, cluid ; in Scotch and Irish, death ; " a hurdle ; a screen." In Low Latin, 
clida. " Si eum interfecerit, coram testibus in quadrivio in clida eum levare 
debet." — Lex Bajuwariorum, tit., lxxvii. 

2 Mouton, in Scotch, mult ; in Irish, molt ; in Welsh, mollt ; in Breton, 
maoult, from which we have the form multo in Low Latin. 

Adonias fist un grand sacrelise de multuns e de gras veels. — Livre des Pois, 
p. 221. 

Immolatis ergo Adonias arietibus et vitulis. . . . 

L'um sacrifiout un buef e un multun. — Ibid., p. 141. 

Immolabat bovem et arietem. 

8 Goeland, " a gull, a sea-gull," from the Breton, gwelan; in Welsh, gtvylan ; 
in Cornish, guilan ; in Scotch and Irish, faoileann, all conveying the idea of 
" whining," evidently on account of the whining notes emitted by that bird. 
On the coast of Normandy the popular name is le gros miaulard. 

4 Pinson. Some write pincon, which is more conformable to its etymology. 
In Welsh, pine is both the name of that bird, and the adjective " jolly, gai, 
merry," which corresponds exactly to the French proverb : Gai comme pinson. 
In Breton, pint. 

6 Dia, id, ha, aha, are calls or cries heard everywhere for driving unbitted 
animals, especially teams of oxen. Claudianus informs us that the muletiers in 
Gaul had one word to make their mules go to the right, another to the left. As 
dia is still a Breton term, and used all over France for the same purpose, it is 
probably one of the words referred to by the poet : 

De Mulabus Gallices. 

Aspice morigeras Rhodani torrentis alumnas 

Imperio nexas, imperioque vagas, 
Dissona quam varios flectant ad murmura cursus, 

Et certas adeant, voce regente, vias. 
Quamvis quseque sibi nullis discurrat habenis, 

Et pateant duro libera colla jugo ; 
Ceu contrista tamen servit, patiensque laborum 

Barbaricos docili concipit aure sonos. 
Absentis longinqua valent praecepta magistri, 

Frenorumque vicem lingua virilis agit. 
Hsec procul angustat sparsas, spargitque coactas, 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 535 

Words referring to man, his good and bad qualities, his 
tastes, habits, and customs, his amusements, etc. Barde, 1 
bourde? brave? barguigner? carole* Jarret, druide, dartre, 

Hsec sistit rapidas, hsec properare facit. 
Lseva jubet ? lsevo deducunt limite gressum. 

Mutavit strepitum ? dexteriora petunt. 
Nee vinclis famulae, nee libertate feroces, 

Exutse laqueis, sub ditione tamen ; 
Consensuque pares, et fulvis pellibus irtae, 

Esseda Concordes multisonora trahunt. 
Miraris, si voce feras pacaverit Orpheus, 

Quum pronas pecudes gallica verba regant. — Claudianus ii. 

1 In Scotch and Irish, bard ; in Welsh, bardd ; in Breton, barz. 

Elal 8e trap* avrofis (KeArots) /col iron/jral /A€\wv ovs fidpdovs 6vo/jui£ov<riv ' ovroi 
8e jtier' bpydvotv reus \6pcus 6/j.oiwu ovs ixkv iifivovaiy, ovs Se Q\.ao , <pr}[iovo~i. — Diodorus 
Siculus, lib. v, c. xxxi. BdpSot fihv vfivi}ra\ Kal irot^ral. — Strabo, lib. iv. 

Bardi quidem fortia virorum illustrium facta heroicis composita versibus 
cum dulcibus lyrae modulis cantitarunt. — Ammian Marcellin, lib. xv, c. ix. 

Bardus gallice cantor appellatur qui virorum fortium laudes canit. — Festus, 
art. Bardus. 

2 In Breton, bourdn, in Scotch and Irish buirte, meant formerly " a gibe, 
a taunt," and bourder is still the popular term for fibbing. 

Warnet, as-tu le raison 

Oie de cest paisant, 

Et comment il nous va disant 

Ses bourdes dont il nous abuffe ? 

ThMtre francais au moyen dge, p. 99.. 
Douce gent, es croniques de Romme sont trouvees 
Les paroles qui sont ci de par moi contees ; 
Mais I rommans en est ou en est ajoust£es 
Granz bourdes qui n'i doivent pas estre recordees. 

Nouveau recueil de contes, i, p. 1 12. 

3 Brave and bragart meant formerly appearing in fine dress : 

Chacun est roy en sa maison, 

Chacun fait le bragard, 

Et chacun n'a pas un potart. 

Le Roux de Lincy, Livre des proverbes francais, xi, p. 197. 
In Breton, brave means " beautiful " ; braga, " to dress elegantly " ; brageer, 
"a dandy." In Welsh, bragio means "to brag"; in Scotch, bragaireachd y 
"empty pride, vainglory." In Irish, breag and breagharhd have the same 
meaning. 

4 In Old French, bargaigner. In Scotch, baragan means " a bargain " ; in 
Breton, barhana means " to bargain." For a long time it had that meaning also 
in French ; now it rather has the sense of " to haggle ; to stick at small matters." 

Estagiers de Paris puent bargainier et achater ble" ou marchie de Paris por 
leur mengier en la presence des talmeliers haubaniers. — Livre des metiers, p. 47. 

D'un vassal vus recunte ci 

Ki un ceval aveit nurri. . . . 

Pur vingt souz, ce dit, le dunra. 

Un sien veisin le bargeigna, 

Maiz n'en waut mie tant duner. — Marie de France, xi, p. 302. 
6 Carole, a round dance, a song of joy and exultation, is well nigh obsolete 
in French. In English, carol has still this meaning. In Breton, koroll; in 
Welsh and Cornish, carol ; in Scotch and Irish, carull ; in Manx, carval : 

Tres que n'avoie que douse ans 

Estoie forment goulousans 

De veoir danses et carolles, 



536 



APPENDIX, 



danser, 1 fringuer? dru? galant? gober? gobelet, gourmand? sor~ 
nettes? souhait? etc. 

D'oir menestrels et parolles 

Qui s'apertiennent a deduit. — Froissart, Poesies. 

1 Danser, in Breton, dans, dansa ; in Welsh, dawnz ; in Scotch, dannz, 
dannsa ; in Irish, damhsa, all with the same meaning. The word exists like- 
wise in all neo-Germanic languages, but is not found in Old High German. In 
that idiom dansdn, a secondary form of dinsen, meant " to draw along ; to trail." 

2 Fringuer, to dance, to jump about, is rather obsolete, and now only said 
of horses. " Un cheval fringant ; ce cheval fringue continuellement." In Breton, 

fringa, to gambol ; in Welsh, frengig means " prompt, quick, wide awake." 

3 Dru, in Breton, druz ; in Welsh, drud, "vigorous, bold, courageous, en- 
terprising." C'est un dru, is said of a smart fellow. 

Adonc etoit le royaume de France gras, plein et dru, et les gens riches et 
puissans de grand avoir, ni on n'y savoit parler de nulle guerre. — Froissart, liv. 
i, c. lx : 

De reporter lui te convient 

Que nous sommes touz sains et druz 

En un bon point ; et ne dy plus. 

Thidtre francais au moyen dge. 

4 In Welsh, gall means " valor," and galannt " bold, fearless, intrepid in 
danger." In Breton, galloud expresses audacity. Lafontaine employs the word 
still in its original meaning : 

Certain renard gascon, d'autres disent normand, 
Mourant presque de faim, vit, au haut d'une treille, 
Des raisins murs apparemment, 
Et couverts d'une peau vermeille 
Le galant en eut fait volontiers un repas. 

La Fontaine, iii, fable, xi. 
6 Gob, gober, gobelet. Gob, in Scotch, Irish, and Welsh, means " mouth " ; 
in Breton it means also " a cup to drink from." Tout de gob meant formerly 
" to swallow a thing whole," whence the familiar expression cela va tout de go, 
speaking of matters that meet with no difficulty, no opposition. 

Une boure qui la estoit, le print et l'avala tout de gob. — La nouvelle Fabrique 
des excellents traits de ve'rite. — Ph. d'Alcripe, p. 29. 

II l'avalla tout de gob, sans mascher. — Ibid., p. 142. 

From the primitive form gob came the old French gobel, contracted into 
gobeau. " Le due de Moscovie devoit anciennement ceste reverance aux Tar- 
tares qu'il leur presentoit un gobeau de lait de jument." — Montaigne, Essais, 
i, c. xlviii. This finally has left the word gobelet. Gob made also the verb gober, 
meaning " to swallow greedily, to gulp, to gobble." 

6 Gourmand, in Scotch and Irish gioraman, " a glutton," from the verb 
giorr, " to glut, to gorge." In Welsh, gormodi means " surfeit ; feeding to ex- 
cess." 

7 Sornette, from sorner, now obsolete ; in Welsh, swrn ; in Breton, sowrn ; 
in Scotch and Irish, sorchain, "jests, drolleries, nonsense." 

En la rue de la Licorne, 
L'un me hue, l'autre me some. 

Paris sous Philippe le Bel, p. 572. 
Dites, je vous pry, sans sorner, 
Par amour, faites-moi venir 
Maistre Pierre. 

La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin. 

8 Souhait, a compound of hait in Old French, from the Breton het ; in 
Welch, heta ; in Scotch and Irish, ait, aiteas, "a kind wish, an eager desire." 
Hence, the old verb haiter, haitier, " to please, to comfort," from which has re- 
mained souhait and souhaiter, " expressing a desire suggested by some idea that 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 537 

Words denoting tools and their use, household arti- 
cles, weapons, etc., baton, balai, 1 bart/, 2 barique, baratte, 
bassin* cruche, echeveau, gimblet? lance* matras* mortaise? 

pleases the imagination." Dehet, dehait, and dehaiter, " to displease," are obso- 
lete. 

Et cume l'arche vint en l'ost, li poples Deu duna un merveillus cri, que tute 
la terre rebundi. Li Philisten oi'rent ces cris et distrent. . . . N'en ourent pas 
tel hait en l'ost, ne hier, ne avant-hier. Ki nus guarderad encuntre ces halz 
Deus? <po sunt les Deus ki flaelerent et tuerent ces d'Egypte el desert. Mais 
orez vus haitez, e seiez forz champiuns, Philistiim, que vous ne servez as Hebreus 
si cume il unt servi a vus. — Livre des Rois, p. 15. 

Cumque venisset area faederis Domini in castra, vociferatus est omnis Israel 
clamore grandi, et personuit terra. Et audierunt Philisthiim vocem clamoris, 
dixeruntque. . . . Non enim fuit tanta exultatio heri et nudiustertius : vae nobis ! 
Quis nos salvabit de manu Deorum sublimium istorum ? Hi sunt Dii qui per- 
cusserunt ^Egyptum omni plaga in deserto. Confortamini, et estote viri, Philis- 
thiim, ne serviatis Habrseis sicut et illi servierunt vobis. 
Pour qui lone temps eut mal dehait 
Tout celui jour fu en bon halt. — Roman du Chastelain de Coucy. 

1 Balai, in Irish ballan, in Breton balan, in Welsh balaen, meaning both the 
shrub and the besom made of it. The English broo??i means also both. Mat- 
thieu Paris says : " Ferens in manu virgam quam vulgariter baleys appellamus." 

2 In Welsh baril, in Scotch baraill, in Irish bairile, in Manx barrel. The 
Breton baraz has made also baratte, the oblong barrel called " churn " in English. 

3 Bassin, in Breton bach, " a trough ; " the Welsh bach and Scotch bac mean 
something hollow. Gregory of Tours quotes it as a word in rustic use. " Pate- 
rae quas vulgo bacchionem vocant." 

4 Gimblet, guimbelet, guimelet, from the Breton gwimelet, in Scotch gimleid, 
in Irish gimeleid, in English gimlet, " a tool for boring holes." " Un guinbelet ou 
foret a percer vins " is now obsolete. The insertion of an euphonic b between m 
and / is not rare in French, where we have trembler, sembler, humble, for instance, 
from tremulare, similare, humilis. 

6 The Breton lans means " a lance." Diodorus Siculus, in speaking of the 
Gauls says, " they throw darts which they call lances, with an iron head on 
them one cubit (about twenty inches) long. UpoOdWovrat 84 \6yx<*s &s e/ce?j/ot 
AArKLA.2 Kctkovai, irrjxvalas Ttp /n^/cei rod o~ih*Tipov. — Diod., lib. v, 30. Diodorus 
lived under Augustus, and Varro, who lived before him, had said, according to 
Aulus-Gellius, that lancea was not Latin, but Spanish. Casaubon thinks Varro 
was mistaken. " Vocem lancea, Varro, Gallis inique adimens, Hispanis tribuit," 
he says ; but inasmuch as Spain was inhabited by the Celtiberians who spoke, 
if not the Celtic of Gaul, at least a language closely connected with it, the word, 
as well as the weapon, may have been used both in Gaul and Spain. Lanza is 
Still the Spanish for lance. 

6 Matras, a. sort of blunt javelin, no longer used, is thus described by Borel : 
" C'est une sorte de dard ancien, ayant grosse teste, qui ne percoit pas, mais 
meurtrissoit, fait a la facon des fioles que les chimistes appelent aussi matras, 
qui ont le fond tout rond et le col fort long." — Diet, du vieux francois, art. Ma- 
tras. Strabo, speaking of the weapons used by the Gauls, says : Kal ixarepls 
ir&kTov rl eUos. — And Caesar, De Bell. Gall., lib. i : " Nonnulli (Galli) inter caros 
rotasque mataras a.c tragulas subjiciebant, nostrosque vulnerabant." The anony- 
mous author of a rhetoric written for Herennius says, lib. iv : "Ut si quis Mace- 
donas appellant hoc modo : non tarn cito sarissae Graecia potitae sunt ; aut idem 
Gallos significans dicat : nee tarn facile ex Italia materis transalpina depulsa 
est." See page 9, note 1. 

' Mortaise, in Irish mortis, moirtis, in Scotch moirteis, in Welsh and Bre- 
ton mortais, " a hole cut in one piece of wood to receive the tenon or projection 
by which another piece is made to hold it." 
3& 



538 APPENDIX. 

picotin, treteau} couper? etc. Articles of dress and parts 
thereof or relating thereto ; as bagagef bouge? botigette, 
braie, brayette, bretelle, flanelle, goitsset, mitaine, chemise? 

1 Tre'teau, which now especially denotes " a mountebank's stage," which 
was formerly spelt trestel, tritel, — el being as usual pronounced au. In Welsh 
trestyl, "trestle," from trawst, " a beam." In Breton tredstel, tredstedl, " a 
trestle," from treAst y " a cross-beam." In Scotch traist and trast have the same 
meaning. 

2 Couper, in Breton kolpa, " to cut," diskolpa, " to split." In Welsh colp, 
" to cut," ysgolp, " shaving ; chip." 

" Si 50 avent que alquen colpe le poin a altre u le pied, si li rendra demi 
were, suluc ceo que il est nez ; del pochier rendrad la meite de la mein ; del dei 
apres le pokier, xv solz, de solt engleis, 90 est querdeners ; de lunc dei, xvi solz ; 
del altre qui ported l'anel, xvii solz ; del petit dei, v solz, del ungle, si il colpe, 
de cascun v solz, de solt engleis ; al ungle de petit dei, iv deners." That is : 

S'il avient que quelqu'un coupe le poing ou le pied a an autre, il lui payera 
demi were, selon sa naissance. Pour le pouce, il payera la moitie de ce qu'il 
eut paye pour la main ; pour le doigt apres le pouce, quinze sous, sous anglais, 
c'est-a-dire de quatre deniers ; pour le long doigt, seize sous ; pour 1' autre qui 
porte l'anneau, dix-sept sous ; pour le petit doigt, cinq sous ; quant a l'ongle, 
s'il le coupe, pour chacun, cinq sous, sous anglais ; pour l'ongle du petit doigt, 
quatre deniers. — Laws of William the Conqueror, § xiii. 

Hieu lur escrist de rechief, e 90 out al brief: si vus mes humes estes, e obeir 
me vulez, les chiefs as fiz vostre seignur colpez. . . . Cume le brief Hieu vint a 
ces de Samarie, erranment colperent les chiefs as seisante fiz le rei. — Livre des 
Rois, p. 380. 

Rescripsit autem eis litteras secundo, dicens : Si met estis, et obeditis mihi, 
tollite capita filiorum domini vestri. . . . Cumque venissent littercz ad eos, tztle- 
runt filios regis et occiderunt septuaginta vivos. 

3 Bagage, now meaning " traveler's luggage," originally meant simply " par- 
cels, bundles ; things, especially articles of dress, that can be carried away " ; and 
is derived from the word bagues, formerly used with that meaning. " Ce temps 
pendant, le seigneur de Quievrain, quel command que le due lui olt fait, se par- 
tist de la cour du due, le plus secretement qu'il peut, lui deuxiesme, et feit em- 
porter ses meilleurs bagues." — {Me'moires de Jacques du Clercq, lib. v, chap, xx, 
t. iii, p. 383.) The word remains in the expression, " Sortir d'un danger vie et 
bagues. Les bagues et joyaux de cette femme ont ete estimes cinquante mille 
francs. Allouer tant a une veuve pour ses bagues et joyaux." In that sense 
bagues is rather antiquated, and used more particularly in law documents. In 
Scotch and Irish bag means " a wallet," in Welsh baic/i, in Breton beach, mean 
" a bundle, a burden." 

4 Bouge, in Breton bulg, in Scotch builg, in Irish bolg, " a bag." Bulgas 
Galli sacculos scorteos vocant. (Festus.) From bouge comes the diminutive 
bougette, " a pouch, a purse," of which the English budget. 

5 Chemise, in Scotch and Irish caimis, in Breton camse, chamse. Paulus, 
the abbreviator of Festus, says : " Supparus, vestimentum lineum quod camisia 
dicitur." Saint Jerome says : " Solent militantes habere lineas quas camisias 
vocant.'' From the monument of the langue d'oc of the tenth century, quoted by 
Champillion-Figeac, chamise stands for the tunic worn by Christ on Golgotha : 

Cum el perveng a Golgota, 

Davan la porta de la ciptat, 

Dune lor gurpit soe chamise 

Chi sens custure fo faitice. — Strophe, lxvii. 
Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, who died in 609, wrote a life of Saint Hil- 
degonde, in which we find the word camisa for a kind of woman's dress. : " Re- 
gina, sermone ut loquar barbaro, scafionem, camisas, manicas, cofeas, cuncta 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



539 



gone} gonelle, toque, trousseau? say on, etc. Other words, 
whose Celtic origin we can trace with any degree of cer- 
tainty, and which are but few, refer in general to the sim- 
plest objects and usages in life. The reason of this is obvi- 
ous. The Celtic aristocracy, as we have seen, very readily 
took to the more perfect language of the conqueror, where- 
as the lower classes, learning it but gradually and under 
great difficulties, kept for a long time to their native words, 
which expressed the habits and requirements of a mode of 
life quite different from the elegant customs and manners 
of refined Roman society. The latter, on their side, and 
especially the middle classes, in no way disdained the use 
of certain Celtic words applying to special objects, in their 
intercourse with the country people and the laboring class- 
es in general, and though many of these words have dropped 
out, some have remained, whose number, however, will 
not exceed by many the list of those of which we have 
thought it interesting to show the origin and history. 

aurea sancto tradidit altari." Chemise seems to have the same sense in the 
" Poem of Dolopathos " : 

Trop fu apertement vestue 
D'une chemise estroit cousue ; 
En braz et par les pans fu lee, 
Delie'e, blanche et ridee ; 

Pelice ot legiere et sanz manche. — Dolopathos, p. 134. 
From the Breton chamse the Old French made chainse, for a lady's cloak : 
" Teristra dicuntur gallice chainse, quaedam vestis mulieris de lino." — (Diction- 
naire de Jean de Garlande, Paris sous Philippe le Bel, p. 595.) " Teristrum, une 
maniere de vestement de femme qu'on dit chainse." — {Ancien glossaire latin 
francais, quoted by Du Cange, art. Theristrum.) The French camisole, in Ital- 
ian camiciuola, " a morning jacket," are both derived from the Low Latin ca~ 
misia. 

1 Gone, gonne, and their derivatives, gonelle, gunelle, gunele, formerly '* a 
gown," are now all obsolete. In Breton, Scotch, and Irish, gun, in Welsh gwn, 
in Manx goon, have all the same meaning : 

Laissa le siecle por devenir prud'hom, 
Et prist la gonne et le noir chaperon. 

Roman de Guillaume au Court Nez, Du Cange, art. Gunna. 
Encor ai-je soz ma. gonele 
Tel rien qui vos ert bone et bele, 
Un hauberjon fort et legier 

Que vos porra avoir mestier. — Tristan, t. i, p. 50. 
La meschine fud vestue de une gunele qui li bastid al talun ; e si soleient k 
eel cuntemple estre vestues pulceles ki furent filles de rei. Li serjanz mist fors 
la meschine, e apres li clost l'us. E ele descirad sa gunele et jetad puldre sur 
sun chief. — Livre des Rois, p. 164. 

Qucc induta erat talari tunica ; hujuscemodi etiam filia regis virgines vesti- 
bus utebantur. Ejecit itaque earn minister illius foras, clausitqite fores post earn. 
Quce aspergens cinerem capiti suo, scissa talari tunica. . . . 

8 Trousseau, " a small bundle ; an outfit." In Breton, trous, trousad ; in 
Scotch, trus. In Irish, truscan and trusiam, " to tie," are derived from trus, " a 
belt ; a band ; a bandage." 



540 APPENDIX. 

As in England, so in France, the best evidence of the 
general occupancy of the country by the Celtic nations is 
found in its geographical nomenclature. In Brittany es- 
pecially, where the Armorican, a language closely allied to 
the Welsh, is still spoken, the local names, with few excep- 
tions, are derived from Cymric roots, 1 and are found there 
in a much purer and more easily recognizable form than 
in other parts of France, over which they are scattered 
more sparingly and in more corrupted forms. Still, in 
the northeast of France we find a few Gaelic and Erse 
roots, which are altogether absent from the local nomen- 
clature of the West, and which, spreading northward 
through Belgium to the Nord Sea, seem to indicate that 
the Gaels of Germany crossed these parts on their way 
to the British isles. 

A very large number of French river names contain 
the root afon. In Brittany we find the Aff, and two 
streams called Aven. There are two streams called Avon 
in the river system of the Loire, and two in that of the 
Seine. The names of the chief French rivers often con- 
tain a fragment — sometimes only a single letter — of this 
root, which may, however, be identified by a comparison 
of the ancient with the modern name. Thus, the Matrona 
is now the Marne, the Axona is the Aisne, the Sequana is 
the Seine, the Antura is the Eure, the Iscauna is the Yonne, 
the Saucona is the Saone, the Meduana is the Mayenne, the 
Duranius is the Dordogne, and the Garumna is the Garonne. 
The names of an immense number of the smaller French 
streams end in on, onne, or one, which is probably a corrup- 
tion of the root afon. In the department of the Vosges, 
for instance, we find the Madon, the Durbion, the Angronne, 
and the Vologne. In the department of the Alpes-basses 
we have the Verdon, the Jabron, the Auon, the Calavon, and 
the Bleone. In the department of the Am there are the 
Loudon, the Sevron, the So/man, and the Ain. Elsewhere 
we have the Avenne, the Vilaine, the Vienne, the Arnon, the 
Ausonne, the Odon, the Iton, the Seran, the Aveyron, the 
Roscodon, the Maronne, the Jourdanne, the Douron, and 
scores of similar names. 

From the root dur we have the Duranius, now the 

1 The theory has been advanced that the Bretons of Brittany were a colony 
from Cornwall or Devon. No doubt there was a great amount of intercourse. 
The Cornwall and Devon of France afforded refuge to the emigrants expelled 
by the Saxons from the Cornwall and Devon of England ; but the local names 
of France prove conclusively that the Bretons were once more widely spread. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH, 



541 



Dordogne, the Antura, now the Enre, and the A turns, now 
the Adour. The Alpine Durance, anciently the Druentia, 
reminds us of the English Derwents. We find the Thurr 
in Alsace, the Durbion in the Vosges, the Durdan in Nor- 
mandy, the Bourdon and the Dourbie in the department of 
the Aveyron, as well as the Douron in Brittany. 

From the roots esk and uisge we have in Brittany the 
Oust, the Couesnon and the Couesan ; and in other districts 
of France the Esque, the Asse, the Ose, the hole, the here, 
the Ousche, the Aisne, the Ausonne, and the Achase. Sev- 
eral French rivers are called the y4Ay or ^A^. The Lsara, 
or ii.yztf, has become the 6fe, the Axona is now the Aisne, 
the Iscauna is the Yonne, the Ligeris is the Loire, and the 
Uxantis insula is the island of Ouessant or Ushant. 

The position of ancient Celtic strongholds in England, 
as we have seen, is frequently indicated by the root d##, 
but in France these Celtic hill-forts were far more numer- 
ous. The ancient Verodunum is now Verdun ; Castellodu- 
num, Chdteaudun, and Lugdunum on the Rhone is now 
called Lyons} Juliodunum was the ancient name of Lou- 
don, and Augustodunum that of Autun. The rock of Laon, 
the stronghold of the later Merovingian kings, is a contrac- 
tion of Laudunum. Noviodunum, the " new fort," is a com- 
mon name : one is now Noyon, another Nevers, another 
Nyon, another Jubleins. Melodunum {Mealldun), the hill 
fort), now Melun, and Uxellodunum in Guienne, were also 
Celtic strongholds. 

After the fifth century, the Celtic ceased to be a spoken 
language in Gaul, except in the ancient Armorica, where 
it resisted the Frankish influence, as in England it resisted 
the Anglo-Saxon, and thus the Low Breton of the present 
day, like the Welsh, the Irish, and the Scotch, is the direct 
descendant of the Old Celtic speech, from which it proba- 
bly differs but little. It has a considerable literature — 
tales, ballads, plays, and even grammars and dictionaries, 2 
none of which, however, dates farther back than the four- 
teenth century. For a thousand years it has been inces- 
santly pressed in its last refuge by the French language ; 

1 Lugdunum Batavorum, in Holland, is now the city of Leyden. 

2 On Celtic literature, see J. C. Zeuss, Grammatica celtica ; Le Gonidec, Dic- 
tionnaire bretofi, and Gra?nmaire celto-bretonne ; Owen, Dictionary of the Welsh 
language; Armstrong, Gaelic Dictionaiy ; O'Reilly, An Irish-English Diction- 
ary; Froude, Dictionnaire francais-celto-breton ; Adolphe Pictet, De V affinitd 
des langues celtiques avec le Sanscrit; Pritchard, Transactions of the Highland 
Society of Scotland ; Le Villemarque, Chants populaires de la Bretagne ; F. M, 
Luzel, Gwerzion Breiz-izel, etc. 



542 APPENDIX. 

and its alterations are due, therefore, partly to the natu- 
ral degradation which its elements have suffered from 
eighteen centuries of use under difficulties, partly from 
the many foreign, that is, French words, which have 
forced themselves into its vocabulary. Yet such is still 
its resemblance to the Welsh dialect in England that, in 
1859, an English vessel having been wrecked off the coast 
of Quiberon, one of its sailors, who was a Welshman, 
could easily make himself understood by the natives, and 
served as interpreter to the crew. 

Not only has the Celtic idiom been thus perpetuated 
in one of the French provinces ; it has also left traces of 
its influence upon the French language. The formation 
of the passive by means of the verb itre ; the double nega- 
tive ne . . . paSy in Celtic ne . . . ke*t, separating its two ele- 
ments by the verb ; the use of the article ; the absence of 
inflections for the declensions of nouns, are common to 
both French and Celtic, and the practice evidently origi- 
nated among the latter, as it was but natural for the native 
population of Gaul, while they were gradually introducing 
foreign words into their own language, to keep up its 
grammatical construction. The vigintesimal system of 
numeration current in France up to the seventeenth cent- 
ury, as cinq-vingts, six-vingts, sept-vingts, that is five, six, 
seven-score, 1 etc., is likewise of Celtic origin. Traces of 
this usage remain in the terms quatre-vingts, quatre-vingt- 
dix, etc., and in the name of the Hopital des Quinze-vingts, 
which was founded for the support of three hundred blind 
persons. The sounds e> e, u ;* the articulations ch and j ; 
the liquid 11; and the nasal sound of vowels preceding m 
and n in the same syllable — all of which are common to 
both French and Low Breton, and did not exist in Latin, 
are undoubtedly traceable to the Celtic language. 

Struck with this resemblance, and especially with the 
many French words found in the Breton Celtic, some 
philologists of the eighteenth century favored the idea 
that such words were not French importations, but origi- 
nals, which from the Celtic had remained in the French 
language, and some went even so far as to declare that 
the whole French language was derived from Low Bre- 

1 In Scotch and Irish scor means a notch made in a stick or tally for the 
purpose of keeping account of numbers, each notch representing twenty. Ac- 
cording to Bosworth the word occurs also in Anglo-Saxon. 

2 This sound exists also in Scotch. The word suth, " soot," for instance, is 
pronounced exactly as if it were French. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH, 543 

ton. Those etymological follies, which Voltaire derided 
under the name of Celtomania, formed the amusement of 
the century, in spite of which the Celtomaniacs, giving 
loose rein to their fancies, would make it out, in their wild 
enthusiasm, that Celtic was the original speech of Para- 
dise, and that Adam, Eve, the Serpent, all spoke Low 
Breton. As to the written form of the language, and its 
utter lack of resemblance with either French or Latin, it 
may be interesting for the reader to compare the French 
and Latin translations found on page 527 with the follow- 
ing version of the same passage made from the Greek 
into Low Breton, by Le Gonidec, a native of Brittany, 
and a distinguished Celtic scholar : 

Brezonec. 

Hogen pa dostee* ouc'h ddr kear, chetu 6 touged eunn den 
mard, pehini a oa mab-penn-her d'he - vamm : hag houman a oa 
intanvez ; hag eul lod braz a dud eiiz a gear a oa gant-hi. 

Ann Aotrou pa welaz anezhi, en doe truez out-hi, hag a lava- 
raz d'ezhi : na wel ket. Hag hen a dostaaz hag a lekeaz he zourn 
war ann arched. 

Ar re he douge* a arzadaz ; hag e lavaraz : den-iaouank, me 
hel lavar d'id, sao. Hang ann den mard a zavaz enn he goanzez, 
hag a zeraouaz komza ; ha Jezuz he rdaz d'he vamm. 

Hdgen ar re holl a oa end e krogaz spount enn-h6 ; hag e 
veulent Doue, 6 lavarout : eur profed braz a zo savet en hon 
touez, ha Doue a zo deued da weloud he" bobl. 

Ar vrud euz a gement-se a redaz dre ar Judea holl, ha dre* 
ann holl vro war-dr6. 

A comparison of this version with those of the same 
passage in Gaelic, Irish, Welsh, and Manx, on pages 21 
and 22, will also prove interesting. 

If, now, we compare the words which Celtic has left 
in the language with those of Teutonic origin, we will 
find that most of the latter denote occupations, habits, 
and customs quite different from those for which Celtic 
names have remained. At once we see that they are 
not the language of laborers and slaves, but that of con- 
querors, rulers, and masters. These armed emigrants, 
who in the fifth and sixth centuries overran both England 
and France, murdering and pillaging, and taking posses- 
sion of the land by brutal force and violence, may have, 
on the whole, been not much better than common robbers 
and pirates ; but once in possession of the land, it became 
a necessity for them to organize more perfectly, and to 



544 APPENDIX. 

establish strict laws in the very interests of their con- 
quests. If their language was rude and unrefined, as com- 
pared to the idiom of the Gallo-Romans, it was that of 
the conqueror, nevertheless, whose will was law, and to 
whom the conquered could only conform and submit. 
Hence a vast number of foreign words which the latter 
in self-defense had to become acquainted with, and which 
they wildly mixed up with their own language, though in 
many instances theirs had perfect equivalents for them. 

But the Latin, as thus spoken, was no longer what it 
was when first introduced by the Romans. The people 
who continued its use cared little for keeping up its origi- 
nal integrity and purity ; schools and study were aban- 
doned everywhere ; culture had ceased even among the 
nobles and the wealthy, who now only thought of saving 
what little they could from the general depredation, and 
the language of Rome ere long fell, among them, into ut- 
ter decay. It is under such circumstances that an idiom 
but feebly resists the pressure of foreign influence, and 
that a nation more readily admits and accepts as current 
all terms that refer to the habits, customs, laws, adminis- 
tration, and especially the business relations, into which 
they eventually enter with their new masters and rulers. 
Yet such was the vitality of the Latin, even then, that the 
Franks themselves, though continuing for several genera- 
tions the use of their own language, soon began to draw 
up their laws in Latin, as more precise than their native 
tongue, and gradually, also, began to speak the Gallo- 
Roman idiom, simultaneously with their own, in their in- 
tercourse with the natives, wich resulted in their finally 
cultivating the new idiom far more successfully even than 
could be done by the Gallo-Roman population in the con- 
dition of dependency in which they were placed. Such 
at least we must conclude, not only from the nature of the 
words left in the language, and which form a perfect rec- 
ord of their institutions and general mode of life, but still 
more so from a quantity of expressions that refer to a 
higher order of ideas ; such as man, considered morally 
and physically ; animals and their vital functions ; agricult- 
ure and the vegetable kingdom ; colors, dress, and orna- 
ment ; war and navigation ; which, being all expressed in 
words of their own language, could only have been intro- 
duced into the current language by themselves. 

On examining this Teutonic element of the French 
language, we will find it to consist of three successive 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 545 

strata of words: 1. Those introduced into Latin by the 
foreign soldiers who served under the Roman eagles prior 
to the first invasion, and which probably were but few in 
number. 2. Military and feudal terms, and others which 
the Franks, Goths, and Burgundians brought with them, 
and which constitute the bulk of the words of this class. 
3. Seafaring terms, and a few others introduced into Nues- 
tria first by the Salian Franks, and later, in the tenth 
century, by the Dutch and Flemish. 

Under these three heads, there are in all about four 
hundred words that have remained in the language. 
When the conquerors substituted the feudal regime of the 
Teutonic tribes for the monarchical and centralized or- 
ganization of the Roman empire, they were obliged at the 
same time to introduce into the language words relating 
to their institutions ; and thus the titles of the feudal hie- 
rarchy, and all terms referring to its political and judicial 
institutions, and practices essentially their own, are of 
Teutonic origin. Of course, words that had reference to 
a state of things, or a mode of warfare now no longer ex- 
isting, are lost or obsolete ; the others have remained as 
part and parcel of the language. 

Among the latter we notice : auberge, heberger, bagarre, 
boulevard, bourg, bouclier, bride, butin, carquois, cible, dague, 
dard, e'charpe, e'craser, e'curie, eperon, estoc, escrime, escar- 
mouche, escarpe, etrier, fanon, fleche, fourbir, fourreau, four- 
rage, frapp er, gage, gain, guerre, guerite, guet, guide y halte, 
hampe, hallebarde, haubert, heaume, hardi, heraut, housse, 
marcher, mare'chal, marque, rang, rapiere, sac, treve, vacarme, 
etc. ; all military terms. Among the seafaring terms we 
have agres, amarrer, avarie, bord, canot, chaloupe, cingler, 
crique, digue, ecume, e'quiper, esquif falaise, foe, fret, gaffe, 
halage, hamac, hauban, havre, kisser, hune, lisse, mat, mousse, 
quille, rade, radouber, tillac, vague, voguer, etc. Names of 
animals, birds, and fishes, also hunting and fishing terms, 
comprise anchois, belier, belette, braque, blesser, broncher y 
brouter, caille, canard, carpe, chamois, chouette, clapir, crabe, 
e'caille, echine, e'erevisse, eperlan, epervier, faucon, garenne., 
glapir, grimper, hanneton, happer, hareng, he'ron, bison, homard, 
lamproie, lecher, leurrer, madre', marsouin, mesange, moineau, 
mouette, mulot, renard, tatidis, trappe, traquer, etc. Names 
of political and judicial institutions and titles have given 
abandonner, ambassadeur, ban, baron, bedeau, chambellan, car- 
can, e'ehafaud, e'ehanson, e'ehevin, fourrier, fief, franc, gabelle, 
hardi, honnir,joli, liste, lot, malle, mignard, mignon, nantir t 



546 APPENDIX. 

orgueil, race, riche, saisir, senechal, and others. The vege- 
table world has retained the words aune, ble, bois, bourgeon, 
framboise, gazon, gerbe, grappe, groseille, gruau, haie, hetre, 
houblon, houx, jar din, marais, roseau, saule, etc. The cardi- 
nal points, nord, est, sud, ouest, are likewise of Teutonic ori- 
gin, and so are many words relating to food and drink ; as 
fliche, bacon, now obsolete, biere, gaufre, goinfre, gruau, gru- 
ger, mets, soupe, trinquer. Among the articles of dress, we 
find coiffe, echarpe, etoffe, feutre, froc, gant, haillon, jacquette, 
loque, nippes, poche, rochet, sarreau, etc. Building and con- 
structions : bourg, dalle, cahute, echoppe, etui, guichet, halle, 
hameau, hangar, Jiutte, loquet, salle, seuil, stalle, etc. Furni- 
ture and household articles : baliut, banc, e'crou, etuve, fau- 
teuil, flacon, tonneau, ca?tif edredon, etc. Words relating to 
man, his good and bad qualities, his inclinations, passions, 
etc. : effroi, frayeur, e'tourdi, felon, gredin, hagard, hair, har- 
di, hargneux, Jwnte, morne, narguer, radoter, sot, tricher, gri- 
mer, grommeler, /tapper, glapir, have, laid, leste, lippu, louclier, 
lorgner, reluquer, renifler, guigner, rdler, tdter, garcon, grin- 
galet, gorge, nuque, duvet, goutte, etc. Of colors we have : 
blanc, bleu, blond, brun, gris, fard, blafard. Among the 
words expressing diverse ideas, which do not come with- 
in this classification, we find : aise, ballot, besoin, biais, bil- 
let, bise, bluette, bouffer, bout, braise, brandon, but, canton, 
causer, chatouiller, choc, choisir, clapoter, clinquant, craquer, 
dechirer, e'blouir, echarde, e'cot, e eraser, ecume, ecurer, e'gratig- 
ner, epier, foule, fourrer, frelater, fr oncer, gdcher, garder, 
garer, garnir, gaspiller, glisser, gratter, grincer, gros, guere, 
gue'rir, guider, guinder, guise, hanter, deguerpir, harangue, 
hater, heurter, hocher, haro, hola, horion, houspiller, lambeau, 
lisiere, lopin, maint, manquer, navrer, pincer, piquer, plaque, 
plat, raffler, raper, de'rober, souiller, tailler, tomber, troquer, 
trouver, and a few others. 1 

All these words have become so thoroughly French 
that nothing but a profound knowledge of the ancient 
Dutch and Old High German would recognize them in 
their French garb, and it is in this particular that they es- 
sentially differ from the German words that have come 
into the language at later periods, and which may be easi- 
ly recognized by their foreign look. The reason is that 
the former grew up with the growing French, blending 
with it in sound and form, and becoming the very sub- 
stance of the language, whereas the latter are only super- 

1 For local names of Frankish origin, see pages 193 and 195. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



547 



ficially connected with it — to use the language of chemis- 
try — words of modern German origin mix only with the 
French ; those of old Teutonic birth enter into combination 
with it. 

The following versions, into Modern German and Old 
High German or Francic, of the passage of Saint Luke, 
quoted in other parts of this work, will give an idea of 
the difference : 



OLD HIGH GERMAN. 

12. W\t tyiu tjer tfyo naln'ta 
pljortu tfyero 23urgt, fenu arftorBaner 
uuad gttragan, etnag fun fittero 
Sftuoter, inti tfytu uuad uuituua inti 
mentgi tljeru 23urgi mi^il mit iru. 

13. £tjta mit rln'u £rul)ttn gtfalj, 
mtlttbu girxtortt uoar fia quab tru j 
9?t curt i?i?uofen ! 

14. 3nti gteng ^uo, inti Mruorta 
rljia oara. £l)te t§ar truogun, 
gt»tuontun, inti quat): 3ungo il) 
qutbu tfyir, 2lrftant ! 

15. 3nti cjifag ttjie tijar tot uuad, 
inti Mgonba foreman ; inti gab inan 
ftnero 9ftuoter. 

16. ©tfteng tf)o alle forty ta, inti 
mttyfytlofotun ®ob, fug quebante: 
23ttfn'u mt£)fytl uutjago arftuont in 
und, inti Mff)iu ©ob uuifota fined 
foiled. 

17. 3ntt u^gieng ttyad uuort in 
alle 3wbeon fon into, inti umM alia 
ttyia £antfeaf. 



MODERN GERMAN. 

12. Sll« er after nafye an bad 
©tabttfyor lam, ftefye, ba trug man 
einen £obten fyeraud, ber etn etniger 
©olm toar fetner Gutter; unbfie 
toar etne 2Bitttoe, unb otel %$olU aud 
ber ©tabt ging mit ttyr. 

13. Unb ba fie ber £@rr fatye, 
jammerte ilm berfelotgen, unb foradj 
ju tf)r : 28 erne nidjt ! 

14. Unb trat tyinju, unb rittyrete 
ben <Sarg an ; unb bie £rager ftan* 
ben. Unb er fpradj j Singling, tcfy 
fage btr, ftetye auf ! 

15. Unb ber £obte rtdjtete ftdj 
auf, unb ftng an gu reben. Unb er 
gao ttyn fetner Gutter. 

16. Unb ed fam fte oik eine 
$urd)t an, unb prtefen (3£)tt, unb 
foramen : Sd iji etn grower $roptyet 
unter und aufgeftanben, unb (3Dtt 
$at fetn 25olf fyeimgefudjt. 

17. Unb biefe Stebe oon ttym er* 
fdjofl in bad ganje iiibtfcfye Sanb, 
unb in alle umliegenbe Sanber. 



All words of Modern German origin came in after the 
first half of the sixteenth century. The religious wars, 
the Thirty Years' War, the German wars of the eighteenth 
century, have introduced a number of military terms, 
such as : bivouac, blocus, blockhaus, chabraque, colback, fifre, 
flamberge, havresac, lansquenet, reitre, sabre, sabretache, 
schlague, etc. ; words denoting drinks and pot-house terms, 
as : gargotte, trinquer, brandevin, chroucroute, nouille, and 
the like; some names of animals, as dan, renne ; some 
terms of art and pleasure, as graver, estomper, valser, etc. 



1 Ammonii Alexandrini qua et Tatiani dicitur Hemitonia evangeliorum, 
edit. Schmeller, Viennse, 1841, in-40, p. 33. 



548 APPENDIX. 

Some terms respectable in German, as land, ross, buck, 
herr, have been turned, in derision, into lande, " waste 
land"; rosse, " a broken-down horse, a jade"; bouquin, 
"an old book"; here, "a poor wretch." The word 
schnapphahn, which meant an'" old-fashioned musket," was 
turned into chenapan, " a scamp, a blackguard, a good-for- 
nothing," and so on. Mining industry, so general in 
Germany, has given more recently a number of mineral- 
ogical terms, such as bismuth, cobalt, couperose, glette, man- 
ganese, potasse, quartz, spath, zinc, which have been adopted 
in French. Nickel is a Swedish word. 1 

Modern German words thus introduced have had no 
effect whatsoever on the French language, except that of 
adding some sixty words to its vocabulary ; whereas the 
old Teutonic dialects have had much to do with shaping 
the language, partly in its pronunciation, and hence in its 
orthography; but especially in generalizing the declen- 
sion of nouns by means of prepositions, like the Celts, and 
by using auxiliaries in the conjugation of verbs, which 
was a German custom, and which was to some extent the 
practice also among the Latin-speaking people of Gaul. 

Elsewhere we have seen the great similarity of local 
names in both Northern France and England. 2 In addi- 
tion to these we have also such familiar English forms as 
Graywick, the river Slack, Bruquedal, Marbecq, Longfosse, 
Dalle, Vendal, Salperwick, Fordebecques, Staple, Crehem, Pi- 
hem, Dohem, Roquet on, Hazelbrouck, and Roebeck. Twenty- 
two of this class of names have the characteristic suf- 
fix -ton, which is scarcely to be found elsewhere upon 
the Continent, and upward of one hundred end in ham, 
hem, or hen. There are also more than one hundred patro- 
nymics ending in ing. A comparison of these patronym- 
ics with those found in England proves, beyond a doubt, 
that the colonization of this part of France must have 
been effected by men bearing the clan-names which be- 
longed to the Teutonic families which settled on the oppo- 
site coast. More than eighty per cent of these French 
patronymics are also found in England. 

1 The French word Allemand, for " German," is modernized from the name 
of the Alemanni, the ancient frontier tribe between Germania and Gaul. The 
Alemanni seem to have been a mixed race — partly Celtic, partly Teutonic, in 
blood. The name is itself Teutonic, and probably means "other men" or 
" foreigners," and thus, curiously enough, the French name for the whole Ger- 
man people has been derived from a tribe whose very name indicates that its 
claims to Teutonic blood were disowned by the rest of the German tribes. 

2 See pages 193-196. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 549 

The Scandinavians who settled in France have left 
few memorials of their speech in the French dictionary 
— few permanent conquests have had so slight an influence 
on the language of the conquered nation. The conquer- 
ors married native women, and their sons seem to have 
learned only the language spoken by their mothers ; so 
that, except in the neighborhood of Bayeux, where the 
Norman speech was grafted on the nearly-related and 
firmly-established language of the Saxon shore, 1 the sons 
of the soil at no time spoke a Scandinavian dialect. But 
the map of Normandy supplies abundant traces of the 
Sandinavian conquest. In England the former abodes of 
the Northmen — Grim, Bibrn, Harold, Thor, Guddar, and 
Haco — go by the names of Grimsby, Burnthwaite, Harroby, 
Thoresby, Guttersby, and Hacconby : in Normandy these 
same personal appelations occur in the village-names in 
the form of Grimonville, Bomeville, Herouville, Tourville, 
Godarville, Haconville, and Hacqueville. 

The Norse garth, " an inclosure, or yard," occurs in 
Normandy at Fisigard, Auppegard, and Epcgard — names 
which we may compare with Fishguard and Appleguard in 
England. Toft, which also means an inclosure, takes the 
form tot in Normandy, as in Yvetot, Ivo's toft; 2 Plumetot, 
flower toft ; Lilletot, little toft ; Routot, Rodtot, or red toft ; 
Criquetot, crooked toft ; Berquetot, birch toft ; Hautot, high 
toft ; Langetot t long toft. We have also Pretot, Tournetot, 
Bouquetot, Grastot, Appetot, Garnetot, Ansetot, Turretot, He- 
bertot, Cristot, Brestot, Franquetot, Raffetot, Houdetot, and 
others, about one hundred in all. Toft being a Danish 
rather than a Norwegian suffix, would incline us to sup- 
pose, from its frequent occurrence, that most of Rollo's 
followers were Danes rather than Norwegians ; 3 and the 
total absence of thwaite, the Norwegian test-word, tends 
to strengthen this supposition. 

The suffix by, so common in Danish England, generally 
takes, in Normandy, the form bceuf, beuf or bue, as in the 

1 See pages 80, 207, and 208. 

2 There was a saint by that name in Brittany, said to be an Irishman. He 
was an honest lawyer, and hence he is represented as a black swan in certain 
mediaeval verses in his honor : 

" Sanctus Ivo erat Brito 
Advocatus, sed non latro 

Res miranda populo." — Jephson, Tour in Brittany, p. 81. 
* Moreover, in Denmark we often find combinations identical with some of 
those just enumerated. Such are Blwntofte, Rodtofte, Langetofte, and Gras- 
iofte. 



550 APPENDIX. 

cases of Criquebitf (Crog-by, or crooked-by), Marbosuf 
(Mark-by), Quittebeuf (Whit-by, or White-by), Daubeitf 
(Dale-by), Carquebnf (Kirk-by), Quillebeuf (Kil-by), Elbceuf, 
Painbeitf, and Lindebeuf. The form beuf, or bcenf, may seem 
very remote from the old Norse boer ; but a few names 
ending in bue, such as Longbue and Tournebue, and still 
more the village of Bures, exhibit the transitional forms 
through which the names in buf and bceuf have passed. 
Hambye and Colomby are the only instances of the English 
form found in France. 

The village of Le Torp gives us the word thorp, 
which, however, more usually appears in the corrupted 
form of torbe, tourp, or tourbe, as in the case of Clitourps. 

The name of the river Dieppe, which was afterward 
given to the town which was built beside it, is identical 
with that of the Diupa, or " deep water," in Iceland ; and 
may be compared with the Nienwe Diep in Holland. 

From the Norse beck, Danish bcec, Dutch beek, " a 
brook," we have Caudebec, the " cold brook," the same 
name as that of the Cawdbeck in the Lake District, and 
the Kaldbakr in Iceland. The name of the Briquebec, the 
" birch-fringed brook," is the same as that of the Birkbeck 
in Westmoreland. The Houlbec, the ." brook in the hol- 
low," corresponds to the Holbeck in Lincolnshire, the 
Holbek in Denmark, and Hollenbeek in Holland. The name 
of Bolbec we may compare with Bolbek in Denmark ; and 
the name of Foulbec, or " muddy brook," is identical with 
that of the Fulbeck in Lincolnshire. 

The Norse oe and ey, "an island," are seen in Eu, 
Cantaleu, Jersey, Guernsey, and Aldemey. 

The suffix -fleur, which we find in Honfleur and other 
names, is derived from the Norse fliot, " a small river or 
channel," which we have in the English, Purfleet, North- 
fleet, and the Dutch Watervliet, etc. The phonetic resem- 
blance between fleur and fleet may seem slight, but the 
identification is placed beyond a doubt by the fact that 
Har fleur was anciently written Herosfluet ; while Roger 
de Hovenden calls Barfleur by the name of Barbeflet, and 
Odericus Vitalis calls it Barbeflot. Vitte fleur is the " white 
river," and Fiquefleur seems to be a corruption of Wickfleet, 
" the river to the bay." 

Holm, " a river island," appears in the names of Tur- 
hulme, Nihou, and Le Houlme, near Rouen. Cape de la 
Hogue, Cape Hoc, and Cape Le Hode, may be compared 
with the cape near Dublin, called the Hill of Howth. This 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 551 

is the old Norse haugr, a sepulchral mound, the same 
word which appears in the haughs of Northumberland. 
Les Dalles, Ondales, Crodale, Croixdal, Danestal, Depedal, 
Dieppedal, Darnetal, and Bruquedalle, contain the Dutch 
word dal, and remind us of some of the dales of Holland. 

Escoves seems to be the Icelandic skogr, and corre- 
sponds to the Old English shaw, "a wood, or shady place." 
Bosc, " a wood, or bushy place," is a very common suffix in 
Normandy, as in the names Verbose, Bricquebosq, and Ban- 
dribose. Holt, " a wood," occurs in the name Terhoulde, or 
Theroude. The Calf of Man is repeated in Le Cauf} 

While thus the local and patronymic names of north- 
ern France and England are essentially the same, and 
show the origins of the people of both countries, to have 
been identical, it is deserving of notice that in England 
the Teutonic idiom prevailed, whereas in France it was 
absorbed by the Rustic Latin. 

Among the Eastern languages which have contributed 
to the French vocabulary, not by direct contact, but only 
accidentally and from fortuitous causes, Greek has fur- 
nished some forms, though it is difficult to determine in 
what way and to what extent it has done so. Some six 
centuries before our era, as already noticed, 2 some Greek 
emigrants landed in Gaul on the Mediterranean coast, and 
established there permanent and flourishing colonies. 
But in spite of their literary culture, which made Mar- 
seilles and several other cities in the south of France as 
many new Athens, there is no evidence that their lan- 
guage spread to any extent among the Gauls — there being 
more occasion for the former to practice the language of 
the surrounding country than for the Celts to learn Greek, 
except for trading purposes. But even business, carried 
on between Greeks and Celts, diminished, if not ceased 
entirely, about one hundred and fifty years before Christ, 
when the Romans came in as their protectors, and held 
land enough around these colonies to isolate them almost 
entirely. It is therefore more than probable, if not certain, 
that most of the Greek words that are found in French 
have come there through the channel of the Romans, who 
constantly borrowed from the Greeks whatever words 
they were in need of. Thus Greek art and Greek man- 
ners, as well as Greek literature, introduced into the liter- 

1 On the Norse names in Normandy, see Depping, Expeditions Maritimes 
des Normands, vol. ii, pp. 339-342. 

2 See page 457. 



552 APPENDIX. 

ary language of Rome a crowd of words utterly unknown 
to the uninitiated, and whatever number of these occur in 
French have come there through the Literary Latin. We 
do not refer here to the Greek terms used in modern 
technology, and which are formed every day from simple 
roots, for the sake of accuracy in scientific nomenclature ; 
nor do we allude to the barbarous combinations, invented 
ever since the sixteenth century, to designate diseases, 
drugs, and patent medicines^ and which would have puz- 
zled the ancient Greeks themselves to understand, as much 
as any of us at present. But between these words arti- 
ficially wrought, and those which have found their way 
into the language unperceived, as it were, there is this dis- 
tinction to be made, that the former keep up their foreign 
appearance, while the latter, like all those that have come 
through the Latin, are thoroughly assimilated in sound 
and form with all words in the language. It is in refer- 
ence to the prevailing affectation of a fondness for Greek 
literature, ever since Ronsard and followers, that Moliere, 
deriding the literary pretense of the Femmcs Savantes of 
his time, makes Philaminte exclaim : 

" Quoi, Monsieur sait du grec ! ah ! permettez de grace 
Que pour V amour du grec, Monsieur, on vous etnbrasse." 

The first Greek words that, with any degree of cer- 
tainty, can be asserted to have penetrated into the popu- 
lar language of Gaul, are due to the influence of Chris- 
tianity, which grew up in the East before spreading 
among the Latin nations. Its first books were written 
in Greek, which accounts for some Greek forms which 
the Roman church adopted in its liturgy, and which still 
remain there, such as the Kyrie eleison in the daily mass, 
and the anthems Agios o Theos and Athanatos o Theos, sung 
on Good Friday. Saint Irenaeus, second bishop of Lyons, 
wrote in Greek as well as in Celtic for the instruction of 
the people in his diocese ; Saint Caesarius of Aries ordered 
Greek anthems to be sung before the sermons, and Saint 
Jerome informs us that some of the Aquitanians of Gaul 
boasted of their Greek origin, and that they studied that 
language with remarkable success. The emperors favored 
this disposition, and in the year 376 Gratianus established 
a Greek chair at Treves. Finally, as an indisputable evi- 
dence that at one time Greek was the learned language in 
Gaul we have the Celtic coins, on which the inscriptions 
are engraven in Greek letters. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



553 



Still, outside Marseilles, Aries, and a few other cities, 
where the population were principally Greek, the lan- 
guage soon ceased to be the colloquial speech in any part 
of Provence after the Roman conquest ; but so well was 
it rooted in these cities that the orator, charged to deliver 
the funeral oration of the younger Constantine, addressed 
the people of Aries in Greek, and that according to Saint 
Cyprian the Arlesians still sang Greek hymns during the 
sixth century in their churches ; and such was the high 
renown of Marseilles for its scholars, that Pope Celestine I 
sent to the city for a Hellenist to come and interpret to 
him a letter from the heresiarch Nestorius. In the ninth 
century, Greek was taught in Tours, Metz, and in various 
monasteries, and was in familiar use at the court of Charles 
the Bald. When Constantine VI was to marry one of the 
daughters of Charlemagne, Ellisee was sent as ambassador 
to his court, by the Empress Irene, to teach the betrothed 
the language and the customs of the court of Byzantium. 
In the tenth century, when the triumph of the Iconoclasts 
caused the persecuted Greek priests to seek refuge in all 
civilized Europe, many of these came to Toul, where the 
bishop allowed them to keep to the liturgy and rites to 
which they were accustomed. Finally, the Crusades in- 
creased the relations between the East and the West, and 
the intercourse between the Greeks and the French was 
too close and too constant for the language of the soldiers, 
the pilgrims, and the merchants, not to be in some way 
affected by the contact. 1 

With all this, the influence of the Greek on the French 
language has been much more literary than lexical ; that 
is, it has borrowed from the Greek more turns of phrases 
than words, and of these, as we have said, almost all come 
through the Latin. Such are, among others : crabe, chere y 
corde, crane, crapule, moustache, somme, thon, bocal, fiole, 
bourse, tresor, tyran, trone ; in Latin, carabus, cara, chorda, 
cranium, crapula, mystax, sagma, thunnus, baucalis, phiala, 
byrsa, thesaurus, tyr annus, thronus ; from the Greek, icapa/Sos, 
Kapa, X°P^ 1 1j fcpaviov, KpatTraXr), fivcrTaj;, aar//jba, Qvvvos, pavica- 
\tov, <pi,d\r}, ffvpcra, urjaavpos, rvpavvos, 6p6vo<$. All these 
words are found in Latin authors of the seventh cent- 
ury, and the French derived them from the Latin, just as 

1 It is evidently from such sources that some provincial dialects or patois 
in France contain words of Greek origin. In Picardy, for instance, we find 
Thiion and The'te, " uncle and aunt," probably from duos and dua, which have 
the same meaning. 
37 



554 APPENDIX. 

the Latin had in previous ages derived them from the 
Greek. More direct is the derivation of Greek words 
introduced through religious influence, and which the 
Western Church adopted for want of words expressing 
the same ideas in the current dialect or even in Latin. 1 
The number of these words, as found in the monuments 
of the Langue d'oi'l, previous to the twelfth century, 
amount, however, to but twelve, including the terms 
orphelin % and efie'e? which are only accessory. The other 
ten are evequef archeveqiie? eveche? monaster e? e'glise* parois- 
se, 9 cAr/tzen, 10 diable} x parole™ and bldmer. 1 * But while the 

1 'AAA' ov Svpafievois 5ia ffret/OTTjra tt\$ irap avrois yKwTTTfs, Kai bvofxdrwv 
veviaif. — S. Gr£g. Nazianzen. Opera. 

2 In Old French orphanin, from the Greek 6p<pav6s, " destitute, comfort- 
less " ; in Latin orphanus and orphaninus. 

3 In Old French spede, from the Greek ffirdOrj, in Latin spat ha. Originally 
any oblong instrument with thin and sharp edges ; a druggist's spatula ; and 
finally a two-edged sword. 

4 In Old French evesqtte, from the Greek eiriffKOiros, " an overseer, a guard- 
lan. 

6 In Old French arcevesqe, from the Greek apx*w, "to be first," and 
€irl<TKonoi ; in Latin arc hiepisc opus. 

6 In Old French evesque, " bishopric ; a bishop's palace." 
' In Old French mttster, mostier, moustier, from the Greek fiovaar^piov, 
"solitude," from ixouaariis, "solitary," derived from /xovdCeiv, " to live single," 
which comes from [x6vos, the root of fxovax^s ; in Latin monachus, " a monk." 

8 In Old French yglese, in Latin ecclesia, from the Greek iKKKrjffia, " an as- 
sembly, a reunion of the faithful," derived from iiaca\4(a, " to convoke." 

9 In Low Latin paroecia, parochia, " a diocese " in Saint Augustine ; M a 
parish " in Sidonius Apollinaris, from the Greek irapoucla, " a dwelling in the 
neighborhood," itself derived from irapoutew, "to live in the neighborhood." 
The first Christians, in order to conceal their religious practices from the 
Romans, held their meetings in the neighborhood of the cities where they lived. 
'H iKK\rj(rla r) irapoiKovffa iv ^vpurj. — Euseb. IV, c. xvii. 'EKK\r)<ria Se ttj irapoiKovo-p 
Foprvvav. — Id., IV, c. xxiii. 'H 'EKKXrjffla rod ®eov 7] irapoiKovffa Tdfi^v. — S. Clem., 
Ep. Corinth. 

10 In Old French Christian, in Latin Christianus, from the Greek xp"""<k, 
" the anointed ; the Christ." 

11 In Old French diavle, in Latin diabolus, from the Greek StdfloKos, " calum- 
niator ; the devil." 

12 From the Greek irapafio\^, in Latin parabola, originally meaning " a com- 
parison, a simile," next " a recital," afterward " speech," and finally " word." 
In a chartulary of the counts of Barcelona, by Diego, II, c. i, we read : " As- 
sumpta parabola sua, respondit episcopus (Hesso scoliasticus) : Non dicam illas 
parabolas quas vos dixeritis ad me, et mandaveritis mihi, ut celem eas." Para- 
bolare is used for " to speak," in Carlovingian documents. In a capitulary of 
Charles the Bald we read : " Nostri seniores, sicut audistis, parabolaverunt simul, 
et consideraverunt cum communibus illorum fidelibus." Later on parabolare be- 
came paroler. " Ki de la naissance de Christ parolent" says Saint Bernard. 

" Par grant saveir parolet li uns al altre." — Chans, de Roland, st., xxvii. 

13 In Old French blasmer, in Latin blasphemare, from the Greek fi\aa(fyijfieiv, 
" to calumniate." Gregory of Tours uses blasphemare in the sense of " to blame." 
In the glossaries we find " blasphemare, vituperare, reprehendere? " Tantum- 
modo blasphemabatur a pluribus quod esset avaritise deditus." — Aymon the monk. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 555 

words in any way directly traceable to Greek are but few, 
there are in French many metaphors which Greek so 
perfectly accounts for that it would be idle to look for 
their origin elsewhere. In French, for instance, as in 
Greek, on assomme quelquun de son bavardage ; on lui rompt 
la tete, and on lui rend mille graces ; on roule un projet dans 
sa tete, and on en seme le bruit. On est homme du peuple, 
d'une grande maison, d'un bon sang, and enfle de vanite". On 
donne des coups ; on dort sur les deux oreilles ; on pleure a 
chaudes larmes ; on brode une histoire ; and on couronne dig- 
nement son ouvrage. As in Greek, a drunkard is called un 
sac a vin ; a quarrel, un differ end ; and a burglar's key, une 
fausse clef. The proverb, tendre comme la rose'e, is really 
nonsense, and is only explained by the fortuitous identity 
of the word epcrrj, which means both " dew " and " young 
lamb." 1 Tel maitre tel valet ; dans le royaume des aveugles 
les borgnes sont rois ; mettre la charrue devant les boeufs ; il 
fait bon a" avoir deux cor des a son arc, are proverbs which 
likewise exist in Greek, and are evidently borrowed from 
that language. 

It was a favorite theory of old etymologists that all 
languages are derived from Hebrew ; modern philology 
has proved them wrong, and shown that elements of lan- 
guages correspond to the elements of race. Inasmuch, 
therefore, as Hebrew does not belong to the family of 
Indo-European languages, all resemblances that may exist 
between Hebrew and French are mainly accidental. When 
Saint Jerome translated the Old Testament into Latin he 
brought into his version certain Hebrew words which had 
no Latin equivalents, as seraphim, gehennon, pascha, etc., 
and from ecclesiastical Latin they passed five centuries 
later into French, when they took the form of se'raphin, 
gene, pdque, etc. But they entered French from the Latin, 
and not from the Hebrew, which will account for their 
altered forms. The Talmudic words cabale, rabbin, and 
such others as refer to matters essentially Hebrew, are 
taken direct from the language, and therefore have kept 
up a closer resemblance. 

The same remarks apply to the Turkish and Arabic, 
whose relations to the French have been likewise merely 
accidental. Thus, words expressing things purely Orien- 
tal, such as bey, cadi, calif e, pacha, visir f sultan, mufti, der- 
viche, marabout, mosque'e, minaret, alcoran, turban, babouche, 

1 See Iliad, xi, 53 ; and Odyssey, ix, 222 ; xiii, 245. 



556 APPENDIX. 

narghile, divan, serail, odalisque, houri, janissaire, mameluck, 
cimeterre, firman, drogman, talisman, sequin, bazar, kiosque, 
caravanserail, bear a foreign stamp which can not be mis- 
taken. They were brought straight from the East by 
travelers and merchants, in the same way as the conquest 
of Algeria has furnished the words bournous, smala, razzia, 
and others, which come as near the real pronunciation as 
French orthography can make them. There are, however, 
other Arabic words which the French language received 
during the Middle Ages, and which came there from 
another source. The Crusades, the scientific greatness 
of the Arabs, the Oriental philosophies, much studied in 
France between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, en- 
riched the vocabulary of the language with many words 
belonging to the three sciences which the Arabs cultivated 
so successfully — astronomy, mathematics, and alchemy, 
and which gave such words as azimuth, zenith, nadir, al- 
gebre, chiffre, zero, alcali, alcool, alambic, elixir, borax, ambre, 
julep, sirop, and others. These, however, did not pass di- 
rect from Arabic into French, but came there through 
the scientific mediaeval Latin, like all words of learned 
origin. 

The Italian element of Modern French comprises 
about four hundred and fifty words. Catherine de Medi- 
cis brought in not only court terms, and words express- 
ing pleasure and amusement, but also terms of war, com- 
merce, and navigation, and especially the terms of art 
needed to express new ideas which had come from Italy 
with Primaticcio and Leonardo da Vinci. Among the court 
terms we find altesse, grandesse, se'renissime, page, courtisan, 
came'riste, carrosse, cavalcade, cortege, escorte, cocarde, partisan, 
incognito, etc. For words of games and amusements we 
have carnaval, mascarade, polichinelle , arlequin, bouffon, cari- 
cature, saltimbanque, quadrille, gala, etc. Terms of war: 
soldat, caporal, cavalier, cavalerie, infanterie, baraque, barri- 
cade, arsenal, carabine, mousqueton, citadelle, parapet, bastion, 
casemate, esplanade, escadron, sentinelle, vedette, patrouille, 
etc. Terms of commerce : banque, banqueroute, gazette, mer- 
cantile, ducat, piastre, sequin, douane, tarif, tontine, bilan, and 
other terms connected with the Italian system of book- 
keeping. Sea-faring terms : escadre, fe'louque, fregate, regate, 
gondole, brigantin, boussole, escale, bastingage, etc. Among 
the terms of art we find artiste, artisan, dilettante ; for 
architecture, facade, corniche, balcon, balustrade, pilastre, 
coupole, dome, niche, cabinet, belvedere, casino, villa, etc. ; for 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 557 

painting, aquarelle, fresque, pastel, grotesque, pittoresque, 
esquisse, modele, madone, palette, gouache, sepia, carmin, in- 
carnat, etc. ; sculpture, torse, buste, bronze, pie'destal, me'daille, 
camee, burin, etc. ; music, opera, concert, te'nor, soprano, can- 
tate, cavatine, ariette, barcarolle, fausset, fugue, arpege, sol- 
fege, sonate, ritournelle, crescendo, adagio, andante, solo, piano, 
mandoline, clarinette, timbale, trombone, violon, violoncelle, 
etc. ; poetry, madrigal, stance, concetti, improviser, etc. In 
the vegetable kingdom we have lavande, muscat, muscade, 
pistache, oleandre, ce'leri, artichaut, scorsonere, primevere, bel- 
ladonne, brugnon, ctdrat, caroubier, etc. For food, macaron, 
macaroni, vermicelle, riz, semoule, biscotte, frangipane, mas- 
sepain, candi, marasquin, sorbet, salade, panade, carbonnade, 
cervelas, etc. From the same source we have costume, ca- 
saque, pantalon, perruque, pommade, bravade, canaille, car- 
casse, caprice, bagatelle, bandit, brigand, charlatan, lazzarone, 
cicerone, talisman, tarentule, contrebande, populace, revolte, 
lave, volcan, cascade, and many others. 

Of Spanish origin the number of words is much less, 
and amounts to about one hundred. They refer especially 
to exotic plants, and their manufactured products, as can- 
nelle, vanille, ananas, abricot, orange, marmelade, cacao, choco- 
lat, caramel, nougat, tabac, cigar e, jasmin, jonquille, tidipe ; 
to animals, e'pagneul, me'rinos, pintade, alezan, albinos ; to 
dwellings, as case, alcove, corridor ; to dress, galon, caban, 
basquine, mantille ; to the army, colonel, adjudant, capitaine, 
camarade, escouade, diane, caserne, matamore, etc. ; to the 
navy, embarcadere, de'barcadere, cab est an, mousse, subre'cargue, 
embargo, etc. ; to music, aubade, serenade, guitare, castag- 
nettes, etc. ; to games, hombre, dominos, etc. ; to which we 
may add such terms as laquais, duegne, incartade, algarade, 
eldorade, paragon, baroque, bizarre, etc. Creole, muldtre, 
negre, come from the Spanish-American colonies. Caste, 
fetiche, auto-da-fe come from the Portuguese. 

From the early part of this century, communication 
between England and France has grown more and more 
frequent, and led to the introduction of many English 
words, such as refer to industrial pursuits, for instance, as 
tender, wagon, rail, tunnel; to articles of food, bifteck, ros- 
bif pudding, grog, punch, rhum, gin, etc. ; to racing, sport, 
and travel, turf, jockey, groom, clown, boxe, sport, bouledogue, 
stalle, steeple-chasse, tilbury, victoria, break, dogcart, touriste, 
fashionable, dandy, etc. ; to politics and public administra- 
tion, bill, budget, jury, comite', club, toast, pamphlet, etc. ; to 
agriculture, cottage, drainer, drainage, etc. ; sea terms, dock, 



558 APPENDIX. 

loch, poulie, paquebot, cutter, yacht, cabine, etc. Words so 
derived amount to about one hundred. 1 

1 Many words thus borrowed from the English are Old French words re- 
turned in altered form and with a special meaning. 

Tunnel, now meaning a vaulted underground passage through a hill or un- 
der a river, is only a modified form of the Old French tonne I, a diminutive of 
tonne, contracted into tonneau. Tonnel has survived in tonne lie, " an arbor." 

Bifteck and rosbif, words that have come into French after the invasions 
of 1814 and 1815, are only imitations of the English way of pronouncing " beef- 
steak " and " roast beef," the French not recognizing their word roti, formerly 
rosti in the English sounds of " roast," nor bceuf, in that of " beef," which in 
Norman-French was written beef and buef, and probably pronounced somewhat 
like the present English. 

Groom, now " a man or boy employed about horses " meant originally " a 
lad, a young servant man" in general. In Old French it was gromme ; in Low 
Latin gromus, gromes : 

A ceste gent sont compaignon 
Mauvais grommes, mauvais garchon ; 
Des boines gens boivent le vin, 
Que il carient, au quemin. 

Glossaire de Carpentier, art. Gromes. 

The English pudding, defined as " flour and meal mixed and seasoned with 
a variety of ingredients, and cooked in a bag or gut of an animal," is evidently 
the Old French boudin, which has the same meaning, and was written in ancient 
time boudel, budel, bdel, bouel. Gower writes bouele, C. A. ii, 265, from which 
the English bowel. Martial gives botellus with the meaning of " sausage ; intes- 
tines" ; and in the Lex Friscionum, v. 52, we read "si botellum vulneraverit." 

Sport is a contraction of the Old French desport, " diversion, recreation, 
play, mirth, merriment." Se desporter meant " to amuse one's self." Desport is 
found in Chaucer, Prologue of the Cante?'bury Tales, see page 432, 

Fashion, now " the prevailing mode or form of dress ; the style considered 
correct among persons of good breeding " ; was written in Old English fassoun 
from the Norman-French fazon, fachon, now / aeon, meaning "the make or cut 
of a thing" ; also manner, as avoir bonne f aeon ; ceremony, as faire des f aeons ; 
sans facon. 

Dandy is simply an English form of the Old French dandin, " a ninny." 
See Moliere's George Dandin. 

Bill. Chaucer writes still bille ; in Old French bulle and bille, from which 
the diminutive billet. Bulle has made bulletin, and derives from the Latin bulla, 
" a stud, a knob " ; later a leaden seal, such as was affixed to an edict ; hence 
the name was transferred to the edict itself. The word bull is the name of papal 
letters-patent. 

For the origin of the word budget, see page 538, note 4. 

Jury. From jurer, " to swear." Juree was in Old French " a company of 
sworn men." See page 523. 

Comite", " a number of persons chosen to consider and manage matters com- 
mitted to their care ; a committee." " To commit " is commettre in French ; 
and " commission," which is spelled and means the same in French, was written 
commissioun by Chaucer. — Prol. 317. 

Toast, tost in Old English ; in Old French tost/e, " bread scorched before 
the fire." The story of the origin of the convivial use of the word is given in 
"The Tattler," No. 24, June 4, 1709. 

Pamphlet, from pawne, " the palm of the hand," and feuillet, " a leafe of a 
book " (Cotgrave). Something like a leaf of paper held in the hand ; a hand- 
bill. This etymology is presumably correct as the word occurs in that sense in 
the " Testament of Love." 

Poulie, in English " pulley," from the French poulain, " a fole or colt ; also 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



559 



Like all other languages, French has borrowed from 
every other idiom whatever word was needed to express 
any special idea. The growth of journalism, science, and 
industry, increased international intercourse, and a larger 
acquaintance with foreign literature have all contributed 
to this result. Words thus introduced, however, as has 
been already observed, always retain their foreign char- 
acter, and the tendency of Modern French to eject them 
will, in many instances, prevent their perfect assimilation. 
As they are now, the entire number of words derived from 
foreign languages will scarcely reach one thousand. 

It is, therefore, to the Latin that we must look for the 
main bulk of the French vocabulary and for the leading 
features of the language itself, there being scarcely any 
grammatical procedure employed in the latter the germ 
of which can not be found in the former. As the process 
of transformation can only be shown by constant compari- 
son with the classical Latin, a general knowledge at least 
of its grammar and vocabulary is presupposed in those who 
wish intelligently to follow the gradual changes which the 
latter underwent in Gaul, and there transformed the lan- 
guage into French. 

The classical Latin in Rome was what the academic 
French is in Paris — a language within a language. It was 
the select dialect of the patricians, improved and refined 
by the poets and orators. Bound by strict and invariable 
rules, the classic Latin became an artificial language — 
highly polished, but, for that very reason, unfit for popu- 
lar use. As such, it has been compared to those delicate 
instruments, which can serve very high purposes when 
dextrously used, but which get broken or injured in rough 
or awkward hands. The popular language, on the con- 
trary, which was a compound of various dialects — Um- 

the rope wherewith wine is let down into a seller" (Cotgrave). " Par le poulain 
ou descend le vin en cave," says Rabelais, Gargantua i, 5. Poulain in Low 
Latin is pullanus. " Expensse pro custodia ptillanorum domini regis" is found 
in a thirteenth century account. The transference of sense causes no difficulty, 
as by application of a common metaphor the name of beasts of burden is often 
given to pieces of wood or to wooden frames made to uphold a weight. Thus, 
the French word poutre, which now means " a beam," meant originally a mare, 
and was so used still by Ronsard. " De toutes parts les poutres hennissantes" 
etc. In Low Latin it was written puletrum from the classical Latin pullus. 
" Si quis pullctrum anniculum vel binam furaverit " Lex Salica, tit. 40. In 
the same way from cheval we have chevalet, " an easel, a trestle, a prop " ; and 
the mechanism of poulie, derived from poulain, is found on a small scale in the 
word epoullin, which means " a weaver's bobbin." The English easel is the 
Dutch ezel, " an ass ; a support for pictures." 



560 APPENDIX. 

brian, Oscan, Etruscan, and others — the better parts of 
which had formed the classical dialects, was full of life 
and vigor. Constantly modified, according to the wants 
and requirements of those who used it, it was imposed by 
conquest on Europe, Asia, and Africa, and when the small 
nation which spread it throughout almost the whole known 
universe succumbed in turn, their language still kept the 
prestige of victory ; in Italy it became Italian ; in Spain, 
Spanish ; in Portugal, Portuguese ; in Gaul, French ; and 
through the latter it transformed the national speech of 
England from Anglo-Saxon into English. 1 

Little is known of the origin of Latin. Its oldest monu- 
ment is a song of the Fratres Arvales, ancient priests of the 
time of Romulus, which still may be seen at St. Peter's in 
Rome, inscribed on a stone which was discovered in the 
year 1777. Next come some fragments of the laws of 
Numa, that have been preserved to us by Festus. In 
Varro we find a few lines and detached words of the 
Salien hymns which this writer no longer understood. 
But of all the legal fragments which exhibit the prisca 
vetustas verborum, as Cicero calls it, 2 the most copious, as 
well as the most important, are the remains of the Twelve 
Tables (b. c. 450), the oldest monument extant of the Latin 
language properly so called. Then follow the Tiburtine 
inscription, the epitaphs of the Scipios, the Columna ros- 
trata, and a few other inscriptions of the third century 
B. c. It was not until about two centuries before the vul- 
gar era that the Roman people commenced to apply them- 
selves to literature ; a distich of Porcius Licinius, cited by 
Aulus Gellius, dates its origin from the second Punic war ; s 
and from that time the literary language made rapid im- 
provement. Polybius informs us that 170 years before 

1 The world-famous name of imperial Rome has been retained by various 
insignificant fragments of the Roman empire. The Wallachians, the descend- 
ants of the Roman colonists on the Danube, proudly call themselves Rotnani, 
and their country Romania. The language of Modern Greece is called the 
Romaic ; that of Southern France is the Romance ; and that of the Rhsetian 
Alps the Romansck. The Ro?)iagna of Italy preserves the memory of the bas- 
tard empire which had its seat at Ravenna ; and the name of the Asiatic pa- 
shalics of Roum and Erzeroum are witnesses to the fact that in the mountain 
fastnesses of Armenia the creed and the traditions of the Eastern Empire of 
Rome continued to exist long after the surrounding provinces had fallen under 
the dominion of the Turks ; while for the European province of Roumelia was 
reserved the privilege of being the last morsel to be swallowed by the Moslem 
Cyclops. See page 465, note 1. 

2 Cicero, de oratore, i, c. 43. 

3 Poenico bello secundo Muso pinnato gradu 

Intulit se bellicosam in Romuli gentem feram. — Aulus Gellius, xvii, 21. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 561 

our era — that is, at the time of Ennius — the Roman lan- 
guage had undergone such changes that Old Latin was 
no longer understood except by some people in the country, 
and that the most learned found it difficult to explain the 
text of the ancient treaties between Rome and Carthage. 
Comparing further the language of Ennius with that of 
Cicero, we find again a great change, there being about 
the same difference between the former and the latter as 
there is between the English of the sixteenth century and 
that of the present day. 

But this was the written idiom and not the usual lan- 
guage of conversation — a distinction which it is important 
not to lose sight of. Even as early as the second century 
B. c. Plautus distinguished two dialects in Rome itself; he 
named the one lingua nobilis and the other lingua plebeia. 
The first of these, constantly improving, became the lingua 
urbana or classic Latin ; the other, abandoned by the up- 
per classes of Roman society, remained rustica, ruralis, 
quotidiana, simplex, as we find it called, and confined 
to the ordinary use of common intercourse in the every- 
day business of life. This distinction between vulgar and 
literary Latin commenced the day the language began to 
be written. At first the difference may have been very 
little ; but critical reflection, the study of good authors, 
the culture of Greek literature, the careful sifting of cur- 
rent words and expressions, and finally the regular study 
of the rules of style and composition, brought the liter- 
ary language to such a degree of perfection that it be- 
came a mark of high breeding in those who possessed it, 
but which for that very reason separated it every day 
more and more from the lingua quotidiana, the ordinary 
colloquial language of by far the large majority. 

But such a difference between written and spoken lan- 
guage has existed at all times, and does so now. The lan- 
guage of our best authors, poets, orators, divines, but lit- 
tle resembles that of our men of business, our farmers, 
sailors, soldiers, and pioneers, nor even that of ordinary 
conversation among our well-bred people ; and if the daily 
press, the public school, lectures, sermons, and orations, 
have not been able to produce a greater uniformity of 
language among ourselves, it would be absurd to suppose 
anything different among the ancients. With them, as 
with us, there were the lettered and the unlettered, with 
many grades and shades between. Some were naturally 
refined and fond of learning ; others preferred the dis- 



562 APPENDIX. 

putes of the Forum to the receptions at court. It is this 
that Horace alluded to when he says that even at the time 
of Augustus the Latin showed traces of its former rus- 
ticity. 1 Fifty years previous, Cicero made the same re- 
mark. One century later Quintilian deplored the irregu- 
larities of the lingua quotidiana, and Aulus Gellius, toward 
the year 150, on finding a rhetorician who understood Pa- 
cuvius, quoted him with the same admiration as if he had 
unraveled the text of the Twelve Tables. When a lan- 
guage is so difficult as not to be understood even by the 
natives, except through a regular study, it has no vitality, 
and at the first serious national reverses, it is destined to 
suffer and to perish, together with the class that uses it. 
But the people's language remains as long as there are 
people to speak it, and, with their change of fortunes, it 
may rise again to higher destinies if favored by circum- 
stances. There is no stand-still in language ; people will 
speak and must speak, and however low their fortunes, 
however ignorant the individual, whatever he says will 
be in imitation of what he hears from others. 

And this is what happened in Gaul. Not to speak of 
the upper classes, who had the advantage of high Roman 
society and a superior education, the people came in con- 
tact only with those of their own class, who spoke the 
lingua rustica, plebeia, the castrense verbum, the militaris vul- 
garisque scrmo as Jerome calls it. Notice that this was not 
a regular and well-defined dialect, but a language spread 
over countries in which it was not originally vernacular, 
and imposed on many parts of Italy itself, 2 as it was after- 
ward upon Gaul. That the Umbrians, Sabines, and Vol- 
scians had dialects of their own, more or less differing 
from the Latin, there can be no doubt. Strabo, writing 
in the age of Tiberius, says : " Though the Oscans have 
perished as a people, their speech still exists among the 
Romans, so that on the stage certain songs and comedies 
are still represented as by ancient custom." 3 Indeed, in 
all the provinces of Italy, there then existed, as there still 
exist, various dialects, used then as they are now by the 

1 Manscrunt, hodieque manent vestigia ruris. — Epist. II, i, 160. 

2 In Aristotle the word Italy denotes only a portion of Calabria. In the 
time of Augustus it came to mean the whole peninsula. — Niebuhr, Hist. Rome, 
vol. i, p. 17. 

3 In the " Golden Ass " of Apuleius, a soldier asks a gardener, Quorsum 
vacuum duceret asinum ? The gardener does not understand ; the question is 
too Latin for him, so the soldier changes it to this : Ubi ducts asinum ilhtm ? 
Whereupon the gardener understands, and replies. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 563 

educated as well as by other people, even to such an ex- 
tent as to affect occasionally their writing, as we may see in 
the case of Livy, who was reproached for his " pativinity " — 
that is, for using words and phrases of his native dialect 
when writing Latin. 1 Even in Rome itself, during its best 
period, the language of the people differed vastly from the 
language of literature. Nor could it be otherwise. Rome 
was the center to which all the world flowed, and its lan- 
guage could not help feeling the influence which neces- 
sarily affects all living languages under like circumstances. 
In classifying words, Quintilian distinguishes between 
Latine et Peregrine, the last of which came, as he says, 
from almost every kind of people, and as examples he 
quotes several words derived from the Gauls, the Car- 
thaginians, and the Spaniards. 2 Thus, the Latin language 
possessed many words of Old Italian and of foreign origin, 
as well as barbarous phrases and solecisms in grammar 
which, in the mouths of the ignorant became, with every 
succeeding age, only more frequent and inevitable. Still 
they were Latin, and so familiar was every Roman with 
their use, that occasionally they slipped even from the pen 
of celebrated writers, by which means we have obtained 
some insight into their colloquial language, which in many 
instances resembled the French in a remarkable manner. 

Thus, we meet fust for fuerit, mats for magis, prudens 
for providens. Virgil writes scecla for scecula, Augustus 
preferred caldus to calidus, and even Plautus said poplo for 
populo. Ennius and his contemporaries wrote indupera- 
tor, avispicium, de decor amentum, indupetrare, extera, supera, 
which, under Augustus, were contracted into imperator, 
auspicium, dedecus, impetrare, extra, supra. In the same 
way we have — 

ala for axilla summus for supremns 

mala " maxilla paullus " pauxillus 

velum " vexillum dixti " dixisti 

cunaz " cubinoz contio " conventio, etc. 

and even in the compounds : 

malo for magis volo scilicet for scire licet 

nolo " non volo videlicet " videre licet 

hodie " hoc die cuicuimodi " cujus cujus modi 

meridie " media die pate facto " pater e facio, etc. 

1 Quintilian says : " Taces de Tuscis, Sabinis et Prsenestinis quoque — nam 
et eo sermone utentem vectium Lucilius insectatur, quemadmodum, Pollis 
deprehendis in Livio Patavinitatem." 

2 Quintilian Inst, orat., i, 9. 



564 APPENDIX. 

Evidently the shorter terms represented the spoken, the 
larger the written language. This difference between 
pronunciation and orthography is clearly demonstrated 
from the meters of the Latin playwrights, and is, more- 
over, in many passages of the contemporaries, expressly 
recognized. 

That some final letters and even syllables were silent 
in Latin appears from the remark of Quintilian that in 
writing care should be taken not to cut off the final sylla- 
bles as in speaking. 1 Victorinus observes that propriety 
requires every letter to be written, even when not heard 
in speaking. 2 The proper elision of certain letters and 
syllables, among the Romans as with us, was a matter of 
taste, of fashion perhaps, and a mark of good breeding. 
When Cicero's Crassus is speaking of the true mode of 
pronouncing Latin, he says : " I do not like the separate 
letters to be either pronounced with pedantic accuracy, 
or slurred over too carelessly. 3 This shows that, though 
an uneducated countryman might have represented by his 
articulation too little of the written word, it was considered 
a fault likewise if the scholar recollected too much of his 
spelling. Quintilian, too, expressly tells us, that " although 
it is necessary, on the one hand, to articulate every word 
clearly, yet to compute and number, as it were, every let- 
ter is wearisome and offensive. For not only," he says, 
" is the union of two vowels into one syllable very com- 
mon, but even some of the consonants are disguised when 
followed by a vowel." 4 That this truncation and contrac- 
tion of words in ordinary speech must have led to inac- 
curacy of spelling, at a time when literary education was 
not so common as at present, may be well expected ; but 
strict regard to orthography was often neglected, not only 
among the uneducated, but also by persons of distinction 
and even men of letters. Suetonius, who had seen the 
handwriting of Augustus, informs us that " He did not 
strictly attend to orthography — that is, the method and 
laws of writing as taught by the grammarians ; on the 
contrary, he seems rather to adopt the opinion of those 
who think that we should write as we pronounce. For, 
as to his often changing or omitting not letters only, but 

1 Curabit etiam ne extremse syllabse intercidant. — Lib. i, c. xi. 

2 Scribere quidem omnibus Uteris oportet, enuntiando autem quasdam 
literas elidere. — De Orthog. 

3 Cicero, de Oratore, iii, n, § 41. 

4 Quintilian. — Inst, orat., xi, 3, § 33. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



56S 



whole syllables, writing" simus for sumus, domos for domus, 
caldum for calidum, according to pronunciation, this is a 
common mistake ; nor would I remark the fact, did it not 
appear strange to me that he should have superseded a 
consular legate as being illiterate because he saw in his 
handwriting ixi for ipse'' x Porphyrius also says of Plo- 
tinus that " he cared little for writing elegantly, that he 
neglected the division of syllables, and paid almost no at- 
tention to the rules of orthography." From these and 
other passages which might be quoted, we may conclude 
that even the written language of Rome could not be 
taken as a standard of that exact and careful pronuncia- 
tion of educated men living in the city, whose mode of 
pronouncing was strikingly different from that of the pro- 
vincials. 2 The colloquial language of the soldiers, traders, 
and country people who formed the large majority of the 
Roman colonists of Gaul, must have been still further re- 
moved from the language of the capital, and words, badly 
uttered already, must have undergone a further alteration, 
both in accent and pronunciation, in the mouth of the un- 
educated Celts, who imitated them the best they could — 
not by reading, but from hearing only. 

But not only did the spoken language differ from its 
written form in pronunciation, it differed also in its vocabu- 
lary, which had preserved many words from the old dia- 
lects not admitted into the literary language. And no 
better proof could exist of French being derived from the 
popular, and not from the classical Latin, than the fact 
that wherever the literary and the common dialect used 
two words for the same thing, the French has invariably 
taken the latter and thrown aside the former. Illustra- 
tions of this are quite numerous, thus : 



LITERARY LATIN. 


POPULAR LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


aula 


curtem 


cour 


caput 


testa 3 


tete 


duplicare 


duplare 


doubler 


edere 


manducare 


manger 


equus 


caballus 4 


cheval 


felis 


catus 


chat 


fragmentum 


petium 


piece 


gulosus 


glutonem 


glouton 


hebdoinas 


septimana 


semaine 



1 Suetonius, vita octav., cap. 87, 
3 Found in Ausonius. 



2 Cicero, de oratore, iii, II, § 43. 
4 Found in Horace. 



566 





APPENDIX, 




•ERARY LATIN. 


POPULAR LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


humilis 


bassus 


bas 


ignis 


focus 


feu 


iter 


viaticum 


voyage 


jus 


directus (drictus) 


droit 


ludus 


jocus 


jeu 


mince. 


minaciae 


menace 


negotium 


ad facere 


a, faire, affaire 


OS 


bucca 


bouche 


osculari 


basiare 


baiser 


ovis 


berbecem 


brebis 


pugna 


battalia 


bataille 


pulcher 


bellus 1 


bel, beau 


quercus 


casnus 


chene 


rubeus 


russus 1 


roux 


sinere 


laxare 


lacher 


tentamen 


exagium 


essai 


urbs 


villa 


ville 


verberare 


batuere 


battre 


vertere 


tornare 


tourner 


via 


caminus 


chemin 



and others. All these examples show that it would be a 
great error to suppose that " French is classical Latin cor- 
rupted by an intermixture of popular forms," as we some- 
times find it stated ; it is, on the contrary, the popular 
Latin itself; and this dialect must have been a very vig- 
orous one to have crowded out the classical language 
everywhere, and remarkably well regulated in its forms, 
as well as its vocabulary, to have produced in France, 
in Spain, in Portugal, and even in Italy itself, analogous 
results. 

The Latin language had no article, and though Quin- 
tilian contended that it was not needed, 2 it is certain that 
its absence was a real deficiency. Indeed, how was to be 
expressed the distinction between " the son of the king ; 
the son of a king ; a son of the king ; and a son of a king " ? 
To supply such wants, the Romans often used the demon- 
strative pronoun ille, for the sake of distinctness, where 
the French now have le, la, les. Examples of this are quite 
numerous among the best Latin writers. Cicero says: 
Annus ille quo ; Ille alter ; Ille rerum domina for tuna ; Ad 
veram laudem ilia pericola adeuntur. Seneca calls God : 
Conditor ille generis humani. Apuleius has: Ubi ducis 

1 Found in Catullus. 

9 Noster sermo articulos non desiderat. — Quintilian, de Instit. Orat, i, 4. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 567 

asinum ilium ? Jerome writes : Vce autem homini illi per 
quern, etc. This pronoun, thus transformed into an article, 
and reduced to two cases only, for reasons which we shall 
presently explain, became used in Old French as follows : 

SINGULAR. PLURAL. 

MASCULINE. FEMININE. MASCULINE. FEMININE. 

Subject, ille, // ilia, la illi, // illae, les 

Object, ilium, le illam, la illos, les illas, les 

Combined with the prepositions de, a, en, in the various 
dialects, we find the article in the following forms : 





SINGULAR. 


PLURAL. 




MASCULINE. 


FEMININE. 


MASCULINE. 


FEMININE. 


Subject, 


li 


le li, la, lai 


li 


les, li 


Object, 


le, lo, lou, lu 


la, lai 


les, los 


les 


with de, 


del, deu, du 


de la, de lai 


dels, des 


dels, des 


with d, 


al, au j el, eu 


ala, alai 


als, as, aus 


as, es 


with en, 


enle, enl 




1 


es 1 



Though there was no indefinite article in Latin, we 
find the word unus used for similar purposes by the best 
authors. Cicero says: " Cum uno forti viro loquor ; Cum, 
uno gladiator e nequissimo. Plautus : " Unam vidi mortuam 
efferre foras ; Est huic unus servus violentissimus. ,f Donatus, 
who wrote when Latin was still a spoken language, says 
of this form, in commenting on a verse of Terence: "Ex 
consuetudine dicit unam, ut dicimus, unus est adolescensT 

In classical Latin the nouns had three genders — mascu- 
line, feminine, and neuter. How these were observed by 
the people will appear from Plautus, who made from, cu- 
pressus, laurus masculine, and pulvis feminine, contrary to 
rule, but just as we find them in French. As to the arbi- 
trary rule which made this or that object neuter rather 
than masculine, it was still less regarded. Even in Plautus 
we find dorsus, cevus, gutturem, cubitus, etc. ; in inscriptions 
dating back beyond the third century we have brachius, 
monumentus, collegius, fatus, metallus, etc. ; in the Salic 
Law animalem, retem, membrus, vestigius, pretius, folius, 
palatius, templus, tectus, stabulus, judicius, placetus, and 
many other examples of the kind. In reference to these, 
a rhetorician of the empire, Curius Fortunatianus, who 
lived about the year 450, observes : " Romani vernacula 

1 Es, for en les, is obsolete, but has left traces in such expressions as matin- 
Is -arts ; docteur-h-sciences; h -mains ; St. Pierre-h-liens. 



568 APPENDIX. 

plurima et neutra multa masculino genere potius enunciant, 
ut hunc theatrum et hunc prodigium." 

The Latin, like the French, had two numbers, singular 
and plural ; but whether the thirty variations of each of 
these, with all their exceptions, etc., were known by the 
people, or correctly used in the drift of conversation by 
even the most punctilious, is exceedingly doubtful. In- 
deed, the tendency to avoid the cumbersome case system 
of the written language was early shown in popular Latin, 
which kept but two forms for each number — the nomi- 
native and the accusative — the former to mark the subject, 
the latter, which occurs most frequently in conversation, 
to mark the object or relation. Thus the popular Latin 
said murus, murum for the singular, and muri, muros for 
the plural, which, in the hasty manner of Roman pronun- 
ciation, slurring over, or throwing out the unaccented 
syllables, were contracted in murs, murm, mur\ murs. 
Afterward, when the use of prepositions, to indicate rela- 
tion, had become general, there was no advantage in keep- 
ing up a difference of form other than that which stood 
for singular or for plural ; and as the more frequent recur- 
rence of the objective case had made this form more 
familiar, it so happened that in course of time the object- 
ive singular murm, mur became the mark of the singular, 
and the objective plural murs that of the plural. 

Adjectives in Old French followed the same rule as 
the substantives, and had at first only two cases, subject 
and object. In these the— 

SINGULAR. PLURAL. 

Subject, bonus became bons ; boni became bon; 

Object, bonum " bon j bonos " bons. 

Following the same course as the noun, and abandoning 
the subjective case, the form bon remained for the singu- 
lar and bons for the plural, and so it did with all other ad- 
jectives. 1 This simplification of the grammatical forms of 

1 Unus and duo, which are declined in Latin, passed through the same 
changes in Old French as did substantives and adjectives. They had two cases 
down to the end of the thirteenth century. 

Subject, unus, uns ; duo, dui ; 

Object, unum, un ; duos, deux. 

The phrase then ran thus : " Uns chevalj et did bceufr moururent " (unus ca- 

ballus et duo doves) : and again, " il tua un cheval et deux bceufr {unum caballum 

et duos doves). 

In the fourteenth century the subjective case was lost, and here, as else- 
where, the objective remained in force. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 569 

the noun and the adjective was a natural consequence of 
the general introduction of the preposition ; nor was this 
use of prepositions exclusively a Celtic or Frankish inno- 
vation ; it, on the contrary, existed at all times in the lan- 
guage, and occurs even in the works of the best classical 
authors. And if it is contended that these forms have 
found their way into their writings by inadvertence, and 
contrary to rule, it would go all the further to prove that 
they existed in the popular language, with which these 
authors must have been very familiar to lose sight of an 
occasional impropriety. Nor is it right to consider the 
popular language as that of the low and the vulgar ex- 
clusively ; in its better form it probably was among the 
educated that of ordinary conversation. Thus Cicero 
says: Homo de schola ; Declamator de ludo ; Audiebam de 
parente nostro ; Pliny : Genera de ulmo ; Virgil : Templum 
de mar more ponam ; and Ovid: Judex de lite jocosa. The 
preposition ad, generally used with the accusative, takes 
the place of the Latin dative. So, for instance, Terence 
says : Quod apparet ad agricolas ; Pauper em ad ditem dari. 
Plautus has : Hunc adcarnificem dabo. Livy : Sospites omnes 
Romam ad par entes restituit ; Restituit ad Romano s ; and 
Augustus: Dare ad aliquem, etc. In Merovingian Latin 
we find Sed veniens ad eo placito ; Ergo donari ad monaste- 
rium ; Idcirco dono ad sacrosanctum monasterium, etc. The 
d is gradually dropped, leaving the preposition a as used 
now in French. Thus we find: A quo placito veniens ; In 
portionem quam a liberto nostro dedimus, etc. 1 

The most important difference between the Latin and 
French conjugations lies in this, that the passive and sev- 
eral past tenses of the active are expressed in Latin by 
terminations, whereas in French they are expressed by 
the past participle of the verb, preceded by avoir for the 
active, and by etre for the passive form. As this is the 
practice in all languages that are derived from the Latin, 
there is reason to believe that it was inherited from the 
common parent, and that it extensively existed in the 
popular Latin, which is corroborated, moreover, by many 
passages that can be quoted from authors of the best ages 
of the Roman idiom. Cicero, for example, said : De Ccesare 

* * The use of ad in the sense of avec, " with," is found in the Lex Salica, 
sixth century. " Si quis unum vasum ad apis furaverit, solidos xv culpabilis 
iudicetur? In another copy of the same law we find " Si quis unum vas cum 
apibus, etc., proving that ad was used as cum. Hence comes the use of a = avec 
in such phrases as chandelier & branche, fusil a aiguille. 
38 



570 



APPENDIX. 



satis dictum habeo ; Habeas scrip turn nomen ; Quce habes insti- 
tuta perpolies, Caesar has : Vectigalia parvo pretio redempta 
habet ; Copias quas habebat par at as. Pliny said: Cognitum 
habeo insulas ; and Livy wrote : Urbem quam parte captam, 
parte dirutam habet. The same is the case with the inflec- 
tions of the passive voice. The latter prevailed in literary 
Latin, but the popular language said sum amatus instead 
of amor, substituting the verb esse joined to the participle 
of the verb to be conjugated, just as is done now in all 
languages derived from that idiom. In the collections of 
Merovingian diplomas and chartularies we meet at every 
page instances like the following : Omnia qua ibi sunt as- 
pecta, instead of aspectantur ; Sicut a nobis prcesente tempore 
est possessum for possidetur ; Hoc volo esse donatum for do- 
nari; Quod ei nostra largitate est concessum for conceditur ; 
Ut ubi luminaria debeant esse procurata for procurari, etc. 
Observe that many passive forms were active with such 
writers as Plautus, who said arbitrare, moderare, munerare, 
par tire, venerare, etc., in place of arbitrari, moderari, mune- 
rari, partiri, venerari, as was the rule in literary Latin. 
In the Atellan fragments we have irascere for irasci, frus- 
trarent, mirabis, complectite, etc. 

The use of the verb habere, as an auxiliary, was even 
extended to the future by the Romans, and such a form 
as amare habeo was at one time as current as amabo, and 
with the same meaning. Even in Cicero we have : Habeo 
etiam dicer e ; Ad familiar es habeo polliceri ; Habeo convenire ; 
Habeo ad te scribere. St. Augustine writes : venire habet. 
This form of the future ran side by side with the ordinary 
form in the writers of the empire, and finally took its place 
entirely. From the sixth century onward the forms amare 
habeo, partire habeo, venire habet in silvam, and the like be- 
come the more common, while the regular futures, amabo, 
partiar, veniet, seem almost forgotten. Observe that, to 
indicate the future, the auxiliary generally follows the 
present infinitive, which is exactly the way the French 
future is formed: Aimer-ai, aimer-as, aimer-a, aimer-ons, 
aimer-ez, aimer-ont. On the same principle the termina- 
tions ais, ais, ait, ions, iez, aient, of the imperfect, added to 
the infinitive, served to form the conditional ; and the 
analogy is perfect, for the conditional indicates the future 
looked at from the point of view of the past, just as the 
future tense indicates a future looked at from the present. 
" I know you will," and " I knew you would." A similar 
distinct form for the conditional is found in all modern 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH, 571 

languages. The literary Latin has no such tense, and con- 
founds faimasse and f aimer ais under the one form amarem. 

Latin formed its adverb from its adjectives by changing 
their terminations into e or ter, as docte ; prudenter. But 
they had also another mode of indicating manner, by using 
the ablative of mens, mente, which probably also was more 
current in speaking than in writing. Thus Quintilian 
said: Bona mente factum ; Claudian : Devota mente tuentur ; 
Gregory of Tours : Iniqua mente concupiscit, etc. Later 
on we find these words written together : bonamente, cara- 
mente, devotamente, and so they have remained in French, 
which forms its adverbs by the addition of the suffix ment 
to the feminine of its adjectives. 

In course of time, and under different circumstances, 
many words, have considerably changed their meaning; 
but this has occurred at all times, and even took place in 
the golden age of Latin literature. Under the emperors 
the Roman courtiers frequently used the words divinus 
and coelestis to qualify the sovereign. The word dominus, 
which, under the consuls, used to mean " proprietor " or 
" master," soon served to designate a " prince." Tiberius 
did not like the epithet, but Caligula was willing to ac- 
cept it. Dominus became the proper term among the early 
Christians to address Divinity. From God it came down 
to the saints, from the saints to the pope, from the pope 
to the bishops, from the bishops to the abbots, and from 
them it spread in the Middle Ages to all the great laymen 
as well as dignitaries of" the church. 1 Majestas, which 
originally meant " greatness, power," likewise took the ab- 
solute sense of " majesty," which ever since has remained 
the title of kings and emperors. 

Already early in the first century we notice a dispo- 
sition to revive words that were old and obsolete, and to 
introduce into prose certain terms that thus far had been 
used in poetry only. Later on, a great number of words 
began to be used in various senses, sometimes distin- 
guished by slight shades of meaning, but often diverging 
widely from their primitive signification, and even, in some 
cases, bearing to it no perceptible relation. Thus the word 
credu/itas, which in Cicero offers the sense of " credulity," 
became, in the pen of the ecclesiastical writers, synony- 
mous with " credence, belief, faith." Paganus, which origi- 
nally was equivalent to our "peasant," or any one not a 

1 In many Protestant countries the clergyman is yet called " the Dominie." 



572 APPENDIX. 

soldier, took the meaning of " heathen," in the works of 
Tertulian and Jerome, and in French became payen, with 
the same meaning. Hostis, after meaning a " foreigner," 
gradually took the sense of " enemy " ; and famosus, which 
in Cicero is translated by " notorious," changed its mean- 
ing to that of " famous." Such changes, however, are by 
no means uncommon in any language. Tyrant, parasite, 
sophist, churl, knave, villain, for instance, anciently con- 
veyed no opprobrious meaning. Impertinent originally 
meant " irrelative," and implied neither " rudeness " nor 
" intrusion," as it does at present. Of course, when Latin 
became the language of a conquered nation, these changes 
became more and more numerous among foreigners, and 
affected even the form of the words. Thus consortio be- 
comes consortium; corporeus, corporale, etc. Adjectives 
appear with new terminations, and new words are com- 
posed without necessity. From dubius they made dubiosus 
and dubitativus ; equalis becomes coequalis ; precavi, impre- 
cavi, etc. In addition to this, many old words, which can 
only be found in the oldest Latin texts, made again their 
appearance — a certain proof that they had never ceased to 
exist in the spoken language. This dialect was kept up 
by Gregory of Tours, Fredegarius, the literary renaissance 
under Charlemagne, and by scholasticism. In our day it 
is the official language of the Roman Catholic Church, 
and until quite lately was to some extent the language of 
the learned, especially in Italy and Germany. 

After the invasion under the Merovingian kings, the 
public personages, notaries, or clergy, too ignorant to 
write literary Latin correctly, too proud to use the com- 
mon Latin in their documents, and eager to imitate the 
fine style of Roman officials, wrote a sort of jargon, which 
is neither literary Latin nor popular Latin, but a strange 
mixture of both, with the common dialect more or less 
preponderant, according to the ignorance of the writer. 
This jargon is what is called " Low Latin," a miserable 
compound of words forged for the occasion with termina- 
tions in us, a, um, so as to give them a Latin appearance, 
under which disguise they were made to enter into the 
language of the ancient masters of the world. 1 This dis- 
tinction between " Low Latin," a gross and barren imita- 
tion of the old Roman dialect by clerks and scribes, and 

1 Moliere, who never allows an opportunity to pass of castigating by ridi- 
cule, exposes the wretched practice in a scene between an examining board and 
a candidate for a doctor's degree. — See Malade imaginaire, troisieme intermede. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



573 



the " Popular Latin," the living- language of the people, 
and parent of the French tongue, must not be lost sight 
of, as words thus formed have had nothing whatsoever to 
do with the formation of the French language, which 
was of spontaneous growth, and produced a vocabulary 
natural and organic, of which man was not the author, but 
merely the instrument. 

If we compare words to a living organism, the conso- 
nants may be likened to the frame, and the vowels to the 
muscles. As the latter are more liable to injury by waste 
and contraction, so the permutation of vowels is subject 
to less certain laws than that of consonants, and they pass 
more readily from one to another. Still, great as was the 
change of sound of Latin words in the mouth of Celts and 
Franks, such was the vitality of the language, through all 
its vicissitudes, that even now in every French word, 
traceable to the popular speech, quantity and accent are 
invariably maintained. This is explained by Brachet in 
the following lucid manner: 1 

As to quantity, the Latin vowel was either short like 
the e of ferus; or long by nature like the e of avena ; or 
long by its position before two consonants, like the e of 
ferrum. This distinction may seem trifling, but in reality 
is most important, as, according to these three differences 
of quantity, the Latin e is transformed into French in three 
different ways: the short e becoming ie, as ferus, fier ; the 
long e by nature becoming oi, as avena, avoine ; and the 
long e by position not changing at all, as ferrum, fer. 

As to accent, in every word of more syllables than one 
there is always one syllable on which the voice lays more 
stress than on the others. Thus, in the word raison, the 
(Stress is on the last syllable ; in raisonnable it is on the last 
but one. This syllable is therefore called the accented or 
" tonic " syllable ; the others unaccented or " atonic." The 
tonic accent 2 gives to each word its proper character, and 
has been well called " the soul of the word." In French 
it always occupies one of two places ; either the last sylla- 
ble in words with a masculine termination — that is, with- 
out a silent e, as chanteur, aimer, finir ; or the penultimate, 
when the ending is feminine, as roide, porche, voyage. In 
Latin, also, the accent occupies one of two places — penul- 
timate, when the syllable is long, as cantorem, amare, finir e ; 

1 A. Brachet, A Historical Grammar of the French Tongue, passim. 

2 It is hardly necessary to state that this accent has no sort of connection 
with the grammatical accents ', *, A , used only in orthography. 



574 



APPENDIX. 



antepenultimate, when the penultimate is short, as rigidus, 
portions, viaticum. Now, if we examine all such words 
carefully, we will see that the syllable accented in Latin 
continues to be so in French, or, in other words, that the 
accent remains where it was in Latin. This continuance 
of the accent is a general and absolute law ; all words be- 
longing to popular and real French respect the Latin ac- 
cent ; all such words as rigide, portique, viatique, which are 
doublets of roide, porche, voyage, and which break this law, 
are of learned origin, and were introduced, after the lan- 
guage was formed, by the scholars of the sixteenth cent- 
ury, who took them from the Latin long after it had 
ceased to be a spoken language. Hence, we may lay it 
down as an infallible law, that " The Latin accent con- 
tinues in French in all words of popular origin ; all words 
which violate this law are of learned origin," thus: 



LATIN. 


POPULAR WORDS. 


LEARNED WORDS, 


dlumen 


alun 


alumine 


dngelus 


ange 


angelus 


computum 


compte 


comput 


debiium 


dette 


debit 


decimd 


dime 


decime 


decorum 


decor 


decorum 


end-men 


essaim 


examen 


mobilis 


meuble 


mobile 


orgdnum 


orgue 


organe 


porticus 


porche 


portique 


etc. 


etc. 


etc. 



In studying the fate of the other syllables, which are, 
of course, all atonic, we must distinguish between those 
which come after the tonic syllable, and those which pre- 
cede it. 

Those which follow the tonic syllable can occupy only 
one of two places — the last syllable, or the last but one 
when it is a short syllable. Hence, we observe two laws : 
First, that " Every atonic Latin vowel, in the last syllable of 
a word, disappears in French," as mare, mer ; amare, aimer ; 
porcus, pore ; mortalis, mortel ; or, what is in fact the same 
thing, it is written with an e mute, as firmus, ferine, tern- 
plum, temple, etc. Second, that " When the penultimate of 
a Latin word is atonic, the Latin vowel disappears in 
French," as oraculum, oracle ; tabula, table ; articulus, arti- 
cle; durabilis, durable. In words accented on the antepe- 
nult, the penultimate vowel is necessarily short in Latin ; 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 575 

this vowel, therefore, being absorbed by the tonic vowel 
preceding it, was scarcely sounded at all. The refined 
Romans may have given it a slight sound, but the popular 
voice neglected altogether such delicate shades of pro- 
nunciation. Thus, in the Latin comedians we find s&clum, 
poclum, vinclum ; and in all the remains of popular Latin 
that have come down to us — the Graffiti of Pompeii, in- 
scriptions, epitaphs, etc. — the short penultimate is gone. 
There we find among others frigdus, verdis, tabla, oraclum, 
caldus, digtus, stablum, anglus, vincre, suspendre, nob lis, pos- 
tus, etc., the French derivatives of which are obvious. 

Like the atonic syllables that follow, so those that pre- 
cede the tonic syllable may be divided into two classes, 
namely, those which precede immediately, and those which 
are at a farther distance from it. In this respect we also 
observe two laws : First, that " Every atonic Latin vowel, 
which immediately precedes the tonic syllable, disappears 
if it is short, and remains if it is long." "Thus it disappears 
in sanitatem, sante, bonitatem, bonte 1 ; positura, posture ; sepa- 
rate, sevrer. It remains in ccemeterium, cimetiere ; ornamen- 
tum, ornement ; testamentum, testament, etc. Second, " Every 
atonic Latin vowel, which precedes the tonic syllable at a 
greater distance, remains in French." Thus the a in sani- 
tatem, the in posit ur a, the e in separate, all reappear in 
the French words sante", posture, sevrer ; whereas testamen- 
tum becomes testament ; vestimentum, vetement. 

In ccemeterium, cimetiere, however, we observe the 
change of 02 into i, and in ornamentum, ornement, that of a 
into e, as, indeed, we have observed many other changes. 
As to the former we will notice that, in the same way as 
the classical Latin had formed ce from the Old Latin ai, 1 
so ce was the archaic form oi, as foidere, Coilius, which by 
the time of Plautus were already softened into fcedere, 
Ccelius, but probably pronounced as when written with oi, 
as would appear from the French words ciel for ccelum ; 
peine {poine in Old French) for poena ; foin for foemim; 
and, as we have seen above, cimetiere for cozmeterium. As 
to the Latin vowel a, its permutation into e is constant at 
the end of words ; in the middle it takes sometimes the 
sound of e, as patrem, pere ; fratrem, frere, etc. ; and then 
again the sound of/, as pratum, pre 1 ; cur atum, cure' ; as also 
the Latin infinitives in are, as amare, aimer, dotare, doner, 
and doter. Indeed every vowel, every consonant, is sub- 

1 See note 2, page 580, and epitaph of Lucius Scipio, note 3, page 582. 



576 



APPENDIX, 



ject to permutation ; and like vowels, so consonants are 
apt to disappear in the middle of words. Thus, in the 
last example quoted, dot are, the t is lost in doner and main- 
tained in doter ; and here we may remark again that when 
a medial consonant is thus dropped, it is a certain sign 
that the word is of popular origin, whereas it is of learned 
origin when that consonant is retained, thus : 



LATIN. 


POPULAR WORDS. 


LEARNED WORDS 


Augustus 


aoftt 


Auguste 


communicare 
denudatus 


communier 
denue 


communiquer 
denude* 


dilatare 


delayer 


dilater 


implicare 
ligare 
regalis 
vocalis 


employer 
lier 
royal 
voyelle 


impliquer 
liguer 
r£gal 
vocal 



The same remark applies to Latin vowels which, ac- 
cording to the law above quoted, disappear in French 
words of popular origin ; they, too, are always preserved 
in words of learned origin, thus : 



LATIN. , 


POPULAR WORDS. 


LEARNED WORDS. 


caritatem 


cherte 


charity 


comitatus 


comt6 


comite* 


cumulare 


combler 


cumuler 


hospitale x 


hotel 


hdpital 


liberare 2 


livrer 


liberer 


masticare 


macher 


mastiquer 


navigare 3 


nager 


naviguer 


operari 


ouvrer 


op£rer 


pectorale 4 


poitrail 


pectoral 


recuperare 


recouvrer 


recuperer 


separare 


sevrer 


separer 


simulare 5 


sembler 


simuler 



Popular words, by thus retaining the tonic accent in its 
right place, show that they were formed from the Roman 
pronunciation while it yet survived ; whereas learned 

1 "Actum apud hospitale juxta Corbolium, anno Domini MCCXLIII " is 
the date of an Ordinance of St. Louis. 

2 Liberare, is found in this sense in Carlovingian documents : thus we read 
" Vel pro dona liberanda secum aliquantis diebus manere praecepit," in the 
Capitularies of Charles the Bald. 

3 Navigare is used by Ovid for " to swim." 

4 Pectorale is used by Pliny for " a breastplate." 

6 Simulare, in the sense of sembler, is used in Carlovingian texts. Thus we 
find : " Ut ille possit res de sua ecclesia ordinare, et ill! liceat, sicut ei simula- 
verit, disponere " in a letter of Hincmar, A. D. 874. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 577 

words, by changing the accent, prove that they were of 
more recent introduction, at a time when every tradition 
as to the correct pronunciation of the Romans was lost or 
disregarded. But if in the former class of words the Latin 
accent was maintained, it must not be supposed that they 
at once assumed the form in which we find them at pres- 
ent. The change, on the contrary, was slow and gradual, 
according to local influences and the vocal organs of those 
who used them — Celts, Franks, Normands, etc. — and was 
the work of ages. In tracing these changes of form we 
should always remember that it is a characteristic of every 
human effort to try to exert itself with the least action — 
that is, with the smallest possible expenditure of energy. 
Language follows this law, and its successive transforma- 
tions are caused by the endeavor to diminish this effort, 
and by the desire of reaching a more easy pronunciation. 
This, combined with the structure of the vocal apparatus, 
gives us the true cause of these changes of language. The 
word maturus, for instance, was not at once pronounced 
tndr. By the hurried pronunciation of the Romans, slur- 
ring over the medial t and the unaccented syllable us, it 
had first the sound of maurs. The natural consequence 
of this clash of fully-sounded vowels was that they both 
dulled and finally combined into one sound maur, in which 
that of the accented syllable ur was predominant. What 
became of the s has been explained above. 1 In the mouth 
of the Teutonic invaders the a was further flattened into 
e, and in the thirteenth century we find it spelled meiir. 
The sixteenth century wrote imir with the circumflex ac- 
cent to indicate the suppression of the e, in which form it 
has ever since remained. In the same manner anima be- 

1 Even among the ancient Romans the final s was in some cases not 
sounded. Ennius writes : 

" Qui cum molta volup ac gaudia clamque palamque, 
Ingenio quoi nolla malum sententia suadet, 
Ut faceret facinus ; levis aut malu', doctu', fidelis, 
Suavis homo, facundu', suo contentu', beatus 
Scitu, secunda loquens in tempore, commodu', verbum 
Paucum, molta tenens anteiqua." 
Here the s is struck off from all the words which are not followed by a vowel, 
or which do not finish a line or clause. Voluptas is even shortened to two 
syllables. In Terence, vowels are constantly contracted or omitted to shorten 
the words, and at times whole syllables are cut off, especially in words ending in 
is or as. Even Virgil, in some instances, strikes off the final s, as in " Nomen 
illi virgilio est" (Georg. iv, 271), and " Cui nomen Amello" (y£n. viii, 358), and 
again " Cui Remulo cognomen erat" From these examples and others we may 
infer that in many instances the final s was not pronounced in Latin. On the 
initial j, see note 1, page 582. 



578 



APPENDIX. 



came time by a regular and natural transition. Up to the 
tenth century it was still written anime. In the eleventh 
century the Normans wrote aneme. In the thirteenth cent- 
ury we find it contracted into anme. In Joinville it takes 
the form of amine, a regular step known even in Latin by 
assimilating nm into mm, as immemor for inmemor, immi- 
grare for inmigrare, immaturus for inmaturus, etc. In the 
fifteenth century amme became dme, by the reduction of 
the mm into m — a process marked by the addition of the 
circumflex on the a, as is the custom in French orthog- 
raphy to indicate the suppression of a following letter. 

Thus every word, every letter — vowels, diphthongs, 
and consonants — have all their history, which it would be 
as instructive as interesting to investigate, the history of a 
language being chiefly the history of the people in their 
most intimate relations. But such a study is beyond the 
limits of this chapter ; and, therefore, we will confine our 
remarks to a short list of words only, which, without ex- 
hibiting their gradual changes, will show the spirit and 
tendency according to which the transformation took 
place which changed Latin into French : 



LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


unus 


un 


finis 


fin 


annus 


an 


fortis 


fort 


bonus 


bon 


grandis 


grand 


ventus 


vent 


sanguis 


sang 


aurum 1 


or 


nudus 


nu 


Jilum 


fil 


crudus 


cru 


centum 2 


cent 


amicus 


ami 


tantum 


tant 


maritus 


mart 



1 Au was pronounced a-ou by the educated Romans, and not like the 
French o, which was looked upon as faulty by grammarians, who speak of it 
as common to peasants and a thing to be avoided, as we see from Festus : 
"Aurum quod rustici orum dicebant." French, which has sprung from the 
popular and not from the classical Latin, has kept the rustic pronunciation. On 
the elision of the final m, see note 3, page 582. 

2 That c, before a, o, u, /, and r, was pronounced by the Romans like the 
English k there can be no doubt. That it was pronounced so before e and i 
under all circumstances, as has been lately asserted, is not yet generally ad- 
mitted. Brachet contends that, when / is followed by a vowel, the c preceding 
i was pronounced tz, as is proved by Merovingian formulas where we find 
unzias for uncias. In connection with this he remarks that the groups t-ia, t-ie, 
t-io, t-iu, were pronounced, not like ti in amitie, but like ti in precaution ; as is 
proved by Frankish charters, which change ti into ci, si, ssi, writing eciam, 
solacio, precium, perdicio, racionem, nepsia, altercasione, for etiam, solatio, pre- 
Hum, perditio, rationem, neptia, altercatione, showing that in pronunciation tid 
and cia were the same thing. 

At a conference of the head masters of schools in England, held in 1871, 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



579 



LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


lima 


lime 


comoedia 


comedie 


doctrina 


doctrine 


modestia 


modestie 


fortuna 


fortune 


ceremonia 


ceremonie 


natura 


nature 


patria 


patrie 



the English method of Latin pronunciation was declared unsatisfactory, and 
the Latin professors of Oxford and Cambridge were requested to draw up and 
issue a joint paper to secure uniformity in any change contemplated. Comply- 
ing with this request, a syllabus was drawn up recommending an entire change 
of pronunciation, adopting in the main the continental practice with but few 
exceptions, mainly based upon the learned treatise of Professor Corssen, iiber 
Aussprache, Vocalismus und Betonung der Lateinischen sprache. Quite recently 
again (1886) the Cambridge Philological Society, making some further changes, 
adopted their " Summary of the Pronunciation of Latin in the Augustan 
Period," in which the articulation of c and g are laid down as follows : " C, as in 
cano, cecini, cycnus, ceu, scit t condicio, always as English k ; never as s or as 
c before «?, i. Thus, ' kekinee,' ' kiiknus,' ' skit,' ' condikio.' G, as in gaudeo, 
genus, gingiua, age, always as English g in '£"ot,' never as j or g in '^ibe,' 
'generous.' " 

As this mode of articulating c and g, in the positions indicated, is utterly at 
variance with continental practice, especially in France, Spain, and Italy, it 
will be of interest to see what has been said against it, and which is summed up 
in the following remarks : " In the first place, the letter C is constantly found 
in old inscriptions, in Greek and Latin, as representing the letter S or 2, which 
would have been quite unnecessary and misleading if it had the sound of the 
Greek kappa, or our K. Thus, to mention one of a thousand instances, the name 
of Sardanapalus is inscribed on a statue in the Vatican as CAPDANAPALOC. 
This would rather seem to indicate that in the mind of the sculptor the C was 
sounded like S. But there are other facts and words which more plainly point 
to the probability that the modern Italian pronunciation of c soft, before e and 
i, as in the English word chest, conforms to that of the ancients. In many words 
t was used interchangeably with c before e and i, showing that the pronuncia- 
tion of these letters in such positions must have been the same, or nearly the 
same, and therefore that c could not have been pronounced as k. Thus, sola- 
tium, convitium, suspitio, nuntius, conditio, among others, are often spelled sola- 
cium, convicium, suspicio, nuncius, condicio. A still stronger evidence of this is 
to be found in the ancient names of persons. Names alter little, if at all, for 
centuries. They are in constant use, and handed down in hundreds and thou- 
sands of families from one to another generation. The sound is constantly on 
the tongue and on the ear, and is subject naturally to less variation than in any 
other words. Even were the spelling lost, the pronunciation would remain. 
Now, among the ancient names c is constantly used interchangeably with t, 
showing that these two letters were in such cases nearly, if not exactly, equiva- 
lents in sound. Thus, among others, Marcia is sometimes spelled Martia ; 
Mucius, Mutius ; Neratius, Neracius ; Portia, Porcia. Again, such names as 
Celsus, Ccesar, Decius, Cincinnatus, Ccecilia, Marcellus, Lucius, Lucia, Lucilla, 
Marcia. and many others of the same character, have always been in use in 
Italy. Is it possible to believe that the present pronunciation of these names 
in Italy, which have been in constant familiar use in hundreds of families for 
twenty centuries at least, is entirely false ? When did it suffer this change ? 
Why was it altered ? The syllabus would have us pronounce Cicero, Kikero., 
But the name of Cicero has always been a living name, familiar to every ear in 
Italy, and no one there ever heard it pronounced Kikero. It is alleged, as an 
argument in favor of this pronunciation, that it was spelled with the kappa, 
KiKepoov, when written in Greek. But, supposing it were pronounced by the 
ancient Romans, as by the modern Italians, Chichero, how were the Greeks with 



58o 




APPENDIX. 




LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


gratia 
justitia 
negotium 
astutia 1 


grace 
justice 
negoce 
astuce 


constantia 
prudentia 
provincia 
nuntius 


Constance 
prudence 
province 
nonce 


dcedalus 2 
cedilis 


dedale 
edile 


amabilis 
horribilis 


aimable 
horrible 



their alphabet to represent this sound ? They had no letter with which to spell 
it nearer than kappa. The chi was a deep guttural, the kappa was the soft k ; 
they had no other letter, and they took the one nearest to it. The same reasons 
also apply to the Greek spelling of all similar names, such as Catsar and Celsus. 
In fact, when we find Caius spelled Taios, one is tempted to ask why the r is 
here used instead of the kappa, if the kappa had the sound we suppose of our 
own k? 

In like manner, in all ancient names of persons and places in which g oc- 
curs before e and i, it is pronounced soft by the Italians, and this affords one of 
the strongest proofs that it was so pronounced by the Latins. As examples of 
this, may be cited Virginia, Girgente, Eugenio, Gemma, and many others. Not 
only the Italians give this soft sound, which still adheres to these words even in 
English, but there is not one of the Romance nations by whom it is pronounced 
hard. If ever the practice prevailed in Rome of pronouncing c and g, as recom- 
mended by the new English method, it certainly was not among the people 
whose speech yet lives in many modern idioms. If they, too, can be shown to 
have pronounced c and g hard before every vowel, then the Italians, as well as 
the French and Spaniards, are entirely wrong in their pronunciation of both let- 
ters, and the same incorrectness is to be found in most of the English words 
derived from the Latin in the use of the g. Is it, however, probable that all 
these nations should wrongly pronounce all the Latin words which still exist 
unchanged in their languages in which either c or g precedes e and i ; and that 
the church, carrying on daily and continuously its functions and offices in Latin 
for eighteen centuries, should have assumed a totally new and false pronuncia- 
tion? 

It would seem, therefore, all things considered, that there is not sufficient 
warrant to overthrow the present Italian pronunciation of c and g, as recom- 
mended in the Oxford and Cambridge syllabus. Nothing certainly is gained, 
variety is sacrificed, and there seems to be every probability that the traditional 
pronunciation is right. At all events, such is the universal pronunciation in the 
south of Europe." — W. W. Story, The Pronunciation of the Latin Language, 

1 In the preceding note it has been shown that in many Latin words the let- 
ter t, before ia, ie, io, iu, was often interchanged with the letter c, which leads 
us to believe that in similar positions they were pronounced alike, though some 
believe that the t so placed had a sibilant sound. But whatever was their exact 
pronunciation in the Augustan age in Rome, certain it is that in later days in 
Gaul t and c in any of the above combinations was pronounced s, as is proved 
by Frankish charters which write indifferently ti, ci, si, as we have seen in such 
words as etiam, solatio, pretium, perditio, etc. In French the Latin t and c, so 
placed, usually became s pronounced like z when between two vowels ; as, ra- 
tionem, raison ; potionem, poison ; ligationem, liaison; or, c pronounced like ss 
when before e, and c before a, o, u ; as, spatium, espace ; provincialis , provencal ; 
lectionem, lecon ; nuntius or nuncius, in Spanish nuncio, in Italian nunzio, and 
in French, nonce. 

8 M in Ennius, Lucilius, Lucretius, sounds like at with diaeresis : 
Et micat interdum Jlammai fervidus ardor .... 
Et nunc montibus e magnis decursus aquat .... 
Sustineat corpus tenuis fima vis animal .... 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



581 



LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


frivolus 
credulus 


frivole 
credule 


nobilis 
solubilis 


noble 
soluble 


circularis 
vulgaris 
vicarius 
seminarium 


circulaire 
vulgaire 
vicaire 
seminaire 


gloria 
memoria 
meritorius 
auditorium 


gloire 
memoire 
meritoire 
auditoire 


socialis 
ruralis 
naturalis 
mortalis 


social 
rural 
naturel 
mortel 


civicus 
rusticus 
famosus 
tenebrosus 


civique 
rustique 
fameux 
tenebreux 


corpus 
tempus 
fundus 
plumbum 


corps 
temps 
fond 
plomb 


ursus 
surdus 
lupus 
cuculus 


ours 
sourd 
loup 
coucou 


ardor 
doctor 
color 
dolor 


ardeur 
docteur 
couleur 
douleur * 


libertas 
Veritas 
sanitas 
civitas 3 


liberte" 2 
verite* 
sante 
cite" 


spatium 
species 


espace 
espece 


asper 
hostis 


apre 
h6te 



and that the two vowels, even when they made but one syllable, were pronounced 
separately, appears from a passage in Varro, where he notices the bad pronun- 
ciation of the country people who said mesius instead of mcesius, and hedus for 
hcedus, only pronouncing the e. — De Ling., lat. lib., vi. 

1 The Latin o was first pronounced ou in French ; amour, favour, honour, 
and often written by u alone, as pro deo a?nur, etc. See page 601. The ou, 
which was prevalent in the Langue d'oc, becomes generally etc after the twelfth 
century in the northern dialects, in which, however, ceu seems to have been 
taken in some words as a compromise between eu and ou, as osuvre, ouvrage ; 
cozur, courage. Sometimes both forms have been retained in the same word, 
or words of the same conjugation, as/.? meurs, tu meurs, il meurt, nous mourons, 
vous mourez ils meurent ; je peux, nous pouvons ; je meus, nous mouvons. From 
douleur we have douloureux, and labeur is connected with labour, labourer, labou- 
rage. Trouveur (trouvire) and troubadour, two words of the same meaning and 
origin, further illustrate this difference between northern and southern dialects. 

2 The northern dialects wrote this termination with an e where the southern 
retained the a, as charitet, caritat ; veritet, veritat ; appelet, appelat, etc. ; et was 
afterward contracted into /. 

3 The Latin v was not pronounced like the French v, in the middle of 
words, but rather like the English w or the French ou. Thus pavonem, pro- 
nounced pa-ou-nem, pa-oun, naturally became paon. Similarly avuncidus, pro- 
nounced a-ou-unculus, was soon contracted to a-unculus, " oncle" The Latin 
poets treat it as a trisyllabic word ; it is found as aunculus, and aunclus in sev- 
eral inscriptions. In the same way we find noember for no-v-ember, juentutem 
for ju-v-entutem. The loss of the v occurs in classical Latin in bourn for bovum ; 
audii for audivi ; redii for redivi ; amarunt for amaverunt ; pluere for pluvere. 
Accordingly pavonem became paon in French ; pavorem, peur ; aviolus, aieul ; 
vivenda, viande ; pluvia, pluie ; ovicula, ouaille ; obliviosus, oublieux, etc. On 
the initial V, see note 4, page 587. 



582 


APPENDIX. 




LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


spina 
studium 


epine 
£tude 


festum 
bestia 


fete 
bete 1 


canius 


chant 


candela 


chandelle 


campus 
calor 


champ 
chaleur 


capella 2 
camelus 


chapelle 
chameau 


cantor 


chanteur 


castellum 


chateau 


actionem 3 


action 


carbonem 


charbon 


petitionem 


petition 


falconem 


faucon 



1 Priscianus, who wrote on Latin grammar, informs us that, already among 
the Romans the s often lost its force. He quotes from Virgil : " Ponite spes 
sibi quisque suas," which was pronounced "ponite 'pes" ; he says, " if not, the e 
in ponite would have become long." And if the assertion of Priscianus may 
seem doubtful, we have but to open the remains of the ancient poets to see that 
in their time the s, followed by a consonant, was often dropped, not only in 
speaking but also in writing, as shown in note I, page 577. Here are some 
more examples : Volito vivu' per ora virum. — Ennius. Turn mare velivolum 
florebat navibiC pandis. — Lucretius. Majorem interea capiunt duldecini fruc- 
tum. — Ibid. Turn laterali dolor certissimu' nuntiu' mortis'. — Lucilius. 

If afterward, Horace and Virgil wrote differently, it by no means follows 
that they pronounced differently, as we find in Cicero the same elision : " De 
terra lapsu' repente, magnu' teo," etc. And that such continued always to be the 
case may be inferred from a passage of Abbon, a Benedictine monk, who, in the 
tenth century, wrote to his English pupils that in " Deus Summus " the first s 
was not pronounced in order to avoid the hissing : " Inter duas etiam partes cum 
s prsecedit, ut Deus summus, ne nimius sibilus fiat, prior s sonum perdit." — 
Qucest. grammat. ap. Maio. Bibl. Vaticana, vol. v, p, 337. 

2 Capella was the name given to the arched sepulchres excavated in the 
walls of the catacombs of Rome, which afterward became places where prayer 
was wont to be made. The Low Latin capella is the hood or covering of the 
altar. An inscription in the catacombs, which is in very bad Latin, reads lit- 
eratim as follows : " Ego secunda feci capella bone memorie filiem meem secundi- 
nem qe recessit in Jidem cum fratrem sum laurentium in pace receserund." 

8 The loss of the termination em of the Latin accusative is constant in 
French. Thus we have bos, bove??i, bceuf ; Jlos,Jlorem, Jleur ; pes, pedem, pied ; 
lac, lactem, lait, etc. But this elision of the m existed already among the 
Romans. Quintilian says of this letter that, whenever found at the end of a 
word, and the following word begins with a vowel, so little of it is pronounced 
that in such phrases as multum ille or quantum erat, the m scarcely has any 
sound. — De orthog. Cassiodorus, a compilator from old writers, and in this in- 
stance from one Cornutus, says, to pronounce m before a vowel had a hard and 
barbarous sound. " Durum ac barbarum sonat, par enim atque idem est viti- 
um ita cum vocali sicut cum consonunte m literam exprimere." — De orthog., 
cap. i. The m is also elided and omitted in some inscriptions, examples of 
which may be found in the Index of Gruterus ; as, for instance, " Ante ora positu 
est." So, also, in the epitaph of Lucius Scipio, the son of L. Scip. Barbatus, the 
m is omitted even before a consonant. Thus, " Hunc unum plurimi consen- 
tiunt Romae bonorum optimum fuisse virum, Lucium Scipionem filium Barbati. 
Consul, censor, hie fuit apud vos. Hie coepit Corsicam Aleriamque urbem ; 
Dedit tempestatibus aedem merito," is written in his inscription with every final 
m but one omitted, thus : " Hone oino ploirume consentiont R. . . . duonoro 
optumo fuise viro Luciom Scipione filios Barbati. Consol, censor, aidilis hie 
fuet a . . . . Hec cepet Corsica Aleriaque urbe — Dedet tempestatibus aide 
merito." This elision of the letter m will account for such contractions as 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 583 



LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


lectionem 


leeon 


draconem 


dragon 


/actionem 


faeon 


saponem 


savon 


silvaticum 


sauvage 


lactuca 


laitue 


ramaticum 


ram age 


tortuca 


tortue 


viaticum 


voyage 


curruca 


charrue 


formaticum 


fromage 


verruca 


verrue 


venenum 


venin 


humanus 


humain 


terrenum 


terrain 


villanus 


vilain 


levamen 
ceramen 


levain 
airain 


paganus 
medianus 


payen 
moyen 


granum 
plenum 


grain 
plein 


sanctus 
unctus 


saint 
oint 


faznum 


foin 


pugnus 


poing 


Junius 


juin 


cuneus 


coin 


lex 


loi 


pix 


poix 


rex 


roi 


vox 


voix 


tres 


trois 


nux 


noix 


tectum 


toit 


crux 


croix 


gratus 

pratum 

casa 


gre 
pre 
chez 


plaga 
baja 1 
carus 


plaie 
baie 
cher 


nasus 


nez 


amarus 


amer 


amare 


aimer 


ferire 


ferir 


donare 


donner 


venire 


venir 


jurare 


jurer 


mentiri 


mentir 


necare 2 


noyer 


moriri 


mourir 


agere 

qucerere 

currere 


agir # 

qu£rir 

courir 


dicere 
legere 
scribere 


dire 

lire 

ferire 


tenere 


tenir 


occidere 


occire 


habere 


avoir 


sedere 


seoir 


sapere 


savoir 


pluere 


pleuvoir 


volere 


vouloir 


credere 


croire 


movere 


mouvoir 


bibere 


boire 



venum eo and animum adverto into veneo and anitnadverto ; and it must have 
been very general in the popular idiom to cause the same in all languages de- 
rived from the Latin. 

1 Baia is found in Isidore of Seville : " Hunc portum veteres vocabant baias." 

2 Necare is so used in Latin writers of the decadence, as in " Postremo Eliee 
jussu profani sacerdotes comprehensi, deductique ad torrentem necati sunt," says 
Sulpicius Severus, Hist., i. ; and Gregory of Tours has " Matrem ejus lapide ad 
collum ligato necare jussisti." Necare becomes negare in Carlovingian documents. 
" Si quis alicujus pecus negaverit vel famulus vel infans," in the Lex Alaman- 
norum. 



584 



APPENDIX. 



LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


facere 


faire 


cingere 


ceindre 


placere 


plaire 


tingere 


teindre 


nascere 


naitre 


ungere 


oindre 


pascere 


paitre 


jungere 


joindre 1 


ille 


le 2 


me 


moi 


ilia 


la 


te 


toi 


ille 


il 


nos 


nous 


ilia 


elle 


vos 


vous 


votum 


vceu 


ovum 


oeuf 


nodum 


noeud 


bovem 


bceuf 


pavor 


peur 


novem 


neuf 


soror 


sceur 


viduum 


veuf 


rem 


rien 


serena 


sereine 


bene 


bien 


verbena 


verveine 


cants 


chien 


balena 


baleine 


legamen 


lien 


magdalena 


madeleine 


vita 


vie 


tredecim 


treize 


pica 


pie 


sedecim 


seize 



1 Euphonic consonants were also used in the Latin, and it seems to be the 
letter d which most pleased the Roman ear. On the Duilian column we find 
en Siceliad ; in altod marid ; pucnandod ; navaled praedad, etc. In the first 
inscription of the tomb of the Scipio's we read gnaivod patre prognatus. In the 
Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus Sacra in ocquoltod ne quisquam fecise 
•velet, etc. This d has been supposed to be the ablative form, but in the same 
Senatus Consultum we find extrad, suprad, facilumed ; neve in poplicod neve in 
privatod neve extrad urbem ; utei suprad scriptum est ; ubei facilumed gnoscier 
potisit. The accusative, having from itself a final consonant, did not want any 
additional euphonic letter except me, te, se, ea, which, in fact, we find written 
med, ted, sed, ead ; as, for instance, Nee nobis prceter med alius quisquam est 
servus Sosia. — Plautus, Amphytr. I, ii, 244. Solus solitudine ego ted atque ab 
egestate abstuli. — Ibid., Asinar, I, iii, II. Neve quisquam fdetn inter sed dedise 
veiet. — Senatus Consultum de Bacchan. Sei esent quei arvorsum ead fuisent 
quam suprad scriptum est. — Ibid. In the earliest specimens of French we find 
the letter d used in the same way. Naimes li due l'oi'd si l'escultent li Franc. — 
Chanson de Roland, St. 132. Qu'en Rencevals ad laiset mors san genz. — Ibid., 
St. 180. Tert lui le vis od ses granz pelz de martre. — Ibid., St. 289. Le roi 
ad ordeigne. — Statutes at Large, A. D. 1463. See page 259. The modern 
French, which has rejected the euphonic d at the end of words, has retained it 
in the middle, between the letters n and r, as cendre from cinis, cinerem ; gendre 
from genus, generem ; tendre from tener, tenerem ; vendredi from veneris die ; 
viendrai from venire (venir-ai) ; tiendrai from tenere (tener-ai). In Latin we 
find the euphonic d also in the middle of words in reddo, redeo, redduco, redhibeo, 
redintegro, prodest, proderam, etc. 

2 It may appear strange that, since the Latin accent was always retained in 
early French, ille should have made one word of its first, and another of its 
second syllable. But this is explained by the fact that popular Latin, as ex- 
hibited by the comic writers, made the last syllable of this word long. Thus 
ille formed le ; ilia, la; illi, lui; illos, les. As an article, the word was used 
long before it appeared with the verb as an indispensable pronoun subject. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



585 



LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


fidem 
pisum 


foi 
pois 


cerasum 
camisia 1 


cerise 
chemise 


porticus 
pertica 
manica 
dominica 


porche 
perche 
manche 
dimanche 


granea 
extraneus 
laudemia 
vindemia 


grange 
Strange 
louange 
vendange 


vivenda 
prcebenda 
infernum 
hibernum 


viande 
provende 
enfer 
hiver 


primarius 
nucarius 
focarium 
granarium 


premier 
noyer 
foyer 
grenier 


anima 
asinus 
domina 
femina 


ame 
ane 
dame 
femme 


acer 
macer 
magister 
presbyter 


aigre 
maigre 
maitre 
pretre 


alter 
malva 
bellus 
novellus 


autre 
mauve 
beau 
nouveau 


dulcis 
tussis 
sposus 
zelosus 


doux 
toux 
epoux 
jaloux 


caballus 
diurnalis 
equalis 
legalis 


cheval 
journal 
egal 
loyal 


apostolus 
epistola 2 
titulus 
capitulum 


ap6tre 
epitre 
titre 
chapitre 


crudelis 
natalis 
nativus 
captivus 3 


cruel 
noel 
naif 
chetif 


siccus 
cippus 
crispa 
crista 


sec 
cep 
crepe 
crete 


mel 

fa 

ferus 
heri 


miel 
fiel 
fier 
hier 


masculus 
pallidus 
fragilis 
gracilis 


male 
pale 
frele 
grele 



1 See page 538, note 5. 

2 Epistola made first epistle. So it is found in the translation in the book 
of Job, and so it has come into English. There is a strange permutation be- 
tween /and r. The Latin peregrinus is found in the form pelegrinus as early as 
in the inscriptions. Sanctus Peregrinus, Bishop of Auxerre, who died A. D. 304, 
was called in French Saint Pilerin. Luscinia, in Old French, is lossignol ; in 
modern French it has become rossignol. " Luscignol, vel apud Parrhisios cor- 
rupto labio rossignol" — Bouvelles, de vitiis ling, vul., 66. We now say m/lan- 
colie ; the writers of the sixteenth century had mdrencolie. The English word 
" colonel " is pronounced as if written with an r, and the cook will say " flit- 
ters" for " fritters." So the uneducated in France say colidor for corridor, etc. 

8 Captivus means " a prisoner " in classical Latin, but used in the sense of 

chetif, " mean, poor-looking," in Imperial times, as we see in the Mathesis of 

Firmicus Maternus, viii, 24, a treatise on astrology written by this Christian 

controversialist, who was a contemporary of Constantine, and died about A. D. 

39 



586 


APPENDIX. 




LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


humilis 
flebilis 
cumulus 
turbulus 


humble 
faible 
comble 
trouble 


vendita 
rendita 
debita 
perdita 


vente 
rente 
dette 
perte 


malignus 
benignus 
maturus 
securus 


malin 
b6nin 
mur 
sur 


viridis 
niiidus 
digitus 
/rigidus 


vert 
net 
doigt 
froid 1 


bueca 
musca 
pulverem 
fulgurem 


bouche 
mouche 
poudre 
foudre 


linea 
vinea 
tructa 
fructus 


ligne 
vigne 
truite 
fruit 


velum 
tela 
tepidus 
rigidus 


voile 
toile 
tiede 
raide 


jocus 
focus 
plus 
deus 


jeu 
feu 
pieux 
dieu 


filia 
familia 
patrinus 2 
matrina 


fille 
famille 
parrain 
marraine 


honorem 
seniorem 
pagensis 
marchensis 


honneur 
seigneur 
pays 
marquis 


abbatissa 
ducatissa 
tristitia 
pigritia 


abbesse 
duchesse 
tristesse 
paresse 3 


monachus 
canonicus 
Burgundia 
verecundia 


moine 
chanoine 
Bourgogne 
vergogne 



436 : " Vicesima pars Sagittarii, si in horoscopo inventa fuerit, homines facit 
nanos, gibbosos, captivos, ridiculosque." 

1 Frigdus was the popular Latin for frigidus, and changes i into oi, like 
pix, poix ; digitus, digitus, doigt ; fidem, foi ; bibere, boire, etc. Palsgrave, in 
his specimens of French pronunciation (a. D. 1530, Book i, p. 61), gives us droit 
and victoire, pronounced as droat and victoare. Still, this pronunciation of oi as 
oa, which was that of the Parisian citizens, as Henri Estienne tells us, was not 
at once adopted at the court and the literary circles ; they retained the oud sound 
for more than two centuries after. Moliere makes fun of the peasantry for say- 
ing oua for oi, and Louis XIV and Louis XV used to say un ouizeau, la foud, 
la loud for oiseau, foi, loi. The stage stuck to this pronunciation up to the be- 
ginning of the present century, and as late as 1830 Lafayette even pronounced 
le roi, le roue*. 

2 The word patrinus is found in Carlovingian documents, as in " Sanctissi- 
mus vir patrinus videlicet seu spiritualis pater noster," from a Charter, A. D. 
752. Compare aviolus and filiolus on page 588. 

3 The chance likeness oi paresse and irdpeffis has led etymologists in old 
times to connect the two words ; but if we divide the word paresse into its ele- 
ments, we shall see that the suffix esse must answer to a termination itia, as 
Icetitia, Hesse ; mollitia, mollesse, etc. ; such words as entiere from integra ; noire 
from nigra, show us that the r of paresse answers to a Latin gr ; the Latin i 
often changes into the French a, as bilancia, balance ; hirundo, aronde j sine, 
sans, etc. ; and thus we reach by these three observations the word pigritia, 
which is the true original of paresse. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 587 



LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


scutarius 


ecuyer 


octo 


hilit 1 


medietarius 


metayer 


ostrea 


huitre 2 


vervecarius 


berger 


cocere 


cuire 


vaccalarius z 


bachelier 


nocere 


nuire 


laudare 


louer 


vitellus 


veau 


jocare 


jouer 


agnellus 


agneau 


nodare 


nouer 


phasianus 


faisan 


pacare 4 


payer 


hortulanus 


ortolan 5 


vicinus 


voisin 


lenticula 


lentille 


orphaninus 


orphelin 


canicula 


chenille 


peregrinus 


pelerin 


craticulum 


gril 


pergamena 


parchemin 


periculum 


peril 


judicem 


juge 


gubernaculum 


gouvernail 


pollicem 


pouce 


suspiraculum 


soupirail 


perdicem 


perdrix 


portalia 


portail 


berbecem 6 


brebis 


bestialia 


betail 



1 Oct changed first into oit, then into uit, and later into huit. The change 
of ct into it is not uncommon in French, as coctus, cuit ; /ructus, fruit ; lactem, 
lait ; /actus, /ait, etc. On the initial H, see note 5, below. 

2 As late as Villon, in the fifteenth century, we find the word spelled oistre, 
whence the English " oyster." 

3 See page 519-526. 

4 Pacare, " to appease, to satisfy." In the sense of " to pay," it is found in 
several mediaeval Latin documents, as " Et si non pacaverint, non tenentur plus 
commodare," in the Leges Burgorum of Scotland ; and in another passage of the 
same ordinances, " Pacabit mercatori a quo praedicta mercimonia emit, secun- 
dum forum prius statutum." 

5 Quintilian informs us that the ancients used the letter h but seldom. 
" Parcissime lettera h uti sunt veteres, etiam in vocalibus cum asdos ircosque 
dicebant." — Quintil., i, 5. The most ancient manuscripts write ortus, ospitium, 
erus, etc. ; inscriptions of imperial days give oc, omo, ordeus, onestus. In the 
same way French makes on, or, orge, avoir, oui, encore, of homo, hora, kordeum, 
habere, hoc-Mud, hanc-horam. But in the fourth century, it seems, this elision 
got out of fashion, and Marius Victorinus, a grammarian of that period, directs 
his countrymen thus : " Profundo spiritu, anhelis faucibus exploso ore fundetur." 
St. Augustine says : " Ut qui ilia sonorum Vetera placita teneat aut doceat, si 
contra disciplinam grammaticam, sine aspiratione prima? syllabae ominem dix- 
erit, displiceat magis hominibus, quam si contra tua precepta hominem oderit, 
cum sit homo." — Conf., i, 29. This rough aspiration of the h suited the Frank- 
ish accent exactly, and may account for that initial in some French words where 
it had none in Latin, as altus, haut ; oleum, huile ; armenia, hermine ; eremitus, 
hennite, etc. In modern French the h is silent. 

6 Berbicem for berbecem, instead of vervecem. That the initial Latin V was 
not represented by the vowel v of the Greeks is shown by the latter constantly 
employing B to represent it. Thus Severus, Valentia, Varro, were spelled 
2,e{ir}pos, j8a\6VTio, fiappcop. Nor could it have had among the Romans the vowel 
sound of the medial v, as noticed in note 3, page 581, since they too often wrote 
b instead of v at the beginning of the word. Berbecem is of Petronius, who 
wrote in the first century. Pliny writes bettonica for vettonica. The custom 
must have been very common, for Isodorus, speaking of this habit, says, " Bir- 
tus, boluntas, bita et his similia, quae Afri scribendo vetiant omnino rejicienda 



588 



APPENDIX. 



LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


apicula 
auricula 
pariculus 2 
vermiculus 


abeille 
oreille 
pareil 
vermeil 


aviolus 1 
filiolus 
capriolus 
bovariolus 


aieul 
filleul 
chevreuil 
bouvreuil 


viginti 
triginta 
quadraginta 
quinquaginta 


vingt 
trente 
quarante 
cinquante 


quomodo 
kanc-horam 
subitaneus 
demane 


comme 
encore 3 
soudain 
demain* 


sine 

de-intus 
ab-ante 5 
subinde 


sans 
dans 
avant 

souvent 


magis 
jam magis 
tarn diu 
jam diu 6 


mais 
jamais 
tandis 
jadis 


ubi 


ou 


ibi 


y' 



sunt, et non per b sed per v scribenda." Still the practice continued, and so 
we find berbecarins for vervecarius, berger ; baccalarius for vaccalarius, bache- 
lier. See page 520. Berbicem is a form common in the Salic Law " si quis 
berbicem furaverit." — IV, § 2. In the Ambrosian Library at Milan is a MS., 
probably dating from the sixth century, in which b and v are constantly 
interchanged. Voluntas is spelled boluntas ; vetustas, betustas ; and even in 
the middle of words we find cibica for civica ; lavoribus for laboribus ; absolbunt 
for absolvunt ; and devitorem for debitorem. This permutation of b, p, v, fis 
constant in modern languages — Habana, Havana; Sebastopol, Sevastopol; 
April, Avril ; pater, vader, father ; etc. 

1 From avius the Romans made aviolus, and from Jilius, jiliolus. Aviolus, 
properly meaning " a little grandfather," soon supplanted avius, in accordance 
with the Roman tendency to use diminutives. The church, giving the name 
of spiritual father and mother to those who held the child at the baptismal font 
as sponsors, has also given the name of jiliolus, that is — " darling little son," to 
the baptized infant. 

9 Pariculus is found in very ancient mediaeval Latin documents. " Hoc 
sunt pariculas cosas," says the Lex Salica. 

8 Originally spelled anc-ore. 

4 The Latin mane gives the French substantive main: II joue du main 
au soir, "he plays from morn to eve." Demane formed the adverb demain, 
which meant originally " early in the morning." 

6 The old Roman grammarian Placidus strongly objects to this as a vulgar 
word, and warns his readers against it — "Ante me fugit dicimus, non Ab-ante 
me fugit ; nam praepositio praepositioni adjungitur imprudenter: quia ante et 
ab sunt duae praepositiones." — Glossae, in Mai, iii, 431. 

6 The letter j was pronounced i-i by the Romans ; they said mai-ior and 
i-iuvenis for major and juvenis. Quintilian informs us that Cicero even wrote 
so. " Sciat enim Ciceroni placuisse aiio, Maiiamque geminata i scribere." — 
Inst. Oral., i, 4, 11. We find liulius for Julius in inscriptions under the em- 
pire. Those inscriptions and manuscripts which wrote Hiesu, Hiericho, Tra- 
hiana, for Jesu, Jericho, Trajani, have accurately represented this pronunciation. 

7 Kwas in Old French *, and previous to that written iv, which was the 
Latin ibi shortened. The permutation of b to v is constant, as liber, livre ; 
proba, preuve ; /aba, fkve, etc. The word ibi often occurs in Merovingian 
Latin in the sense of illi, illis. " Ipsum monasterium expoliatum, et omnes 
cartae, quas de supra dicto loco ibi delegaverunt ablatae." — Diploma of Hlotair 
III, A. d. 664. " Tradimus ibi terram" and " dono ibi decimas" are found in 
a Charter of A. D. 883. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 589 



LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


LATIN. 


FRENCH. 


subtus 


SOUS 


inde 1 


en 


super 
susum 2 


sur 
sous 


quem 
ego 3 


que 4 



In this list of words, taken from the classical, popular, 
ecclesiastical, and mediaeval Latin, the student may have 
noticed many which have changed their meaning consid- 
erably in passing from Latin into French. Sometimes the 
sense is wider, as car pent arius, " a wheelwright," which be- 
comes charpentier, " a carpenter " ; caballus, " a nag," has 
risen to nobility in cheval ; minare, which originally meant 
" to drive a cart or a flock," has the sense of " to lead," in 
general, in the word mener ; villa was first "a farmstead," 
then " a hamlet," and in the form ville it is " a city " ; the 
inhabitant of such a farm, such a hamlet, the villanus, vil- 
ain, has not fared so well. Indeed, the sense of words is 
often narrowed, passing from general to particular ; ju- 
mentum, for instance, originally " a beast of burden," be- 
comesjument, " a mare " ; peregrinus, properly " a stranger ; 
a person who travels," is restricted inpelerin to " travelers 
to the Holy Land or some other holy place " ; arista, 
both " a fish-bone and an ear of wheat," has lost its sec- 
ond meaning in the word arete ; carruca, "a chariot," has 
become an agricultural cart in charrue, " a plow." Some- 
times the abstract Latin word becomes concreted in 

1 Inde had in popular Latin the sense of ex Mo, ab Mo : " Cadus erat vini ; 
inde implevi Cirneam." — Plautus, Amphytr., i, 1. This use of inde was very 
common in Merovingian Latin, and the documents of the time have many ex- 
amples of it. Thus, in a formula of the seventh century we find " Si potes inde 
manducare," si tu peux en manger ; and in a diploma of 543, " Ut mater nostra 
ecclesia Viennensis inde nostra hseres fiat," etc. In Old French inde becomes 
int ; in the tenth century it is ent, a form still surviving in the word souvent 
from subinde ; in the twelfth century it is en, and has remained so. 

2 Susum was often used for sursum, and is so found in Plautus, Cato, Ter- 
tullian, and others. St. Augustine writes Justim vis facere Deum, et te susum, 
** you wish to depress God, and exalt yourself." De-susum has produced dessus. 

3 The g of ego seems to have been pronounced somewhat like y in the Eng- 
lish word " year," to judge from the form eo which it takes in the oath of Lud- 
wig the German, A. D. 842, and io in the oath of his brother's soldiers — a differ- 
ence like that of leonem and lion. Later on we find the word spelled jeo, jio, 
jou,jeu — dialectic differences indicating a somewhat broader pronunciation than 
je has at present. 

4 The Latin pronunciation of qu seems to have been very much what it is 
now in French, since in many words we find the letter c used instead before the 
vowels or u, as in quotidie, sometimes spelled cotidie ; loquutus, locuttis ; 
quum, cum ; quur, cur, and others. This pronunciation of qu, like the English 
k, is further indicated by the double pun of Cicero, who, being requested to give 
his vote for the son of a cook, answered " Ego quoque tibe jure favebo," pun- 
ning on the words quoque and jure. 



590 APPENDIX. 

French, as punctionem, the act of pricking, becomes poincon, 
" an awl " ; tonsionem, the act of shearing, becomes toison, 
" a fleece " ; morsus, the act of biting, becomes mors, " a 
bit, a bridle " ; and nutritionem, nutrition, is " a nursling " 
in nourrisson. A Latin concrete word, on the other hand, 
occasionally becomes abstract or metaphorical in French. 
Thus ovicula, a tender diminutive of ovis, " sheep," has 
produced the word ouailles, which in French ecclesias- 
tical language is used in reference to a spiritual pastor. 
It is clear that the French language, having before it 
many rich and slightly different senses of the Latin word, 
takes one of its facets, regards it as if it were the only 
one, and thus gives birth to the modern signification. But 
these changes of meaning do not merely occur in words 
passing from Latin into French, nor are they confined to 
French alone ; they, on the contrary, have occurred at all 
times, as we have seen already, and are common to all 
living languages. 

The principal characteristic of the French language, 
and that which distinguishes it from all other languages, 
both ancient and modern, is the logical construction of 
the sentence. The order in which the words are placed 
is almost always the same, and this order may be said to 
be founded on reason. Every proposition names first the 
person or thing that acts, afterward the action, and then 
the object upon which the action falls, so that the ideas 
class themselves, not according to the importance which 
the imagination gives to each, but in obedience to the 
order indicated by reason and by the succession of facts. 

Thus, a French writer, wishing to make the panegyric 
of a magnanimous sovereign, would express himself thus: 
" Je ne puis nullement passer sous silence cette admirable 
douceur, cette clemence inoui'e et sans bornes, cette mode- 
ration dans l'exercice du pouvoir supreme." Here the 
person who speaks is expressed first: " Je" ; then follows 
the action : "Je ne puis nullement passer sous silence" ; and 
after this the object on which the action falls : the " douceur \ 
clemence, and moderation" of the man he wishes to praise. 
Cicero, from whom this passage is translated, establishes 
an order directly opposite. " Tantam mansuetudinem tarn 
inusitatam inauditamque clementiam, tantumque in summa 
potestate rerum omnium modum tacitus nullo modo pras- 
terire possum." 1 By him, the real motive of the phrase 

1 Pro Marcello, i. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



591 



is enounced first, that is, the three virtues which form the 
object of his eulogy ; the person who acts and the action 
itself are only mentioned at the end of the sentence. This 
inverted order of the Latin is certainly more brilliant and 
more animated, as it expresses the thought exactly in the 
way it presents itself to the imagination ; but the French, 
not having preserved the use of these varied terminations 
which in Latin distinguish the cases of nouns and the 
tenses of verbs, and by which the relation of words is in- 
dicated whatever place they occupy in the sentence, is 
obliged to keep strictly to the direct order to insure clear- 
ness. In this particular, perhaps, the foreign influence is 
the most strongly felt. The Teutonic invaders of Gaul, 
in adopting the Roman language, dropped the Latin case 
system, and the terminations of the Latin verbs, as alto- 
gether too intricate to be of any use to them. Harmony 
of language they cared but little for, and they never dis- 
turbed themselves to please the imagination by submit- 
ting words to any particular arrangement. Their sole 
aim was to express their ideas in the plainest possible 
manner, and in an order the most easily intelligible. The 
process, of course, deeply affected the character of the 
language ; but what it lost in one way it gained in the 
other, clearness and precision becoming the leading feat- 
ure of the language which, polished to suit the require- 
ments of modern thought and modern institutions, pro- 
claims as its axiom Ce qui nest pas clair ii est pas Francais. 



CHAPTER III. 

SCRAPS FROM ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS ILLUSTRATING EARLY 
FRENCH LITERATURE AND THE FRENCH LANGUAGE. 

Preliminary Remarks. 

On reading the specimens of Early French, and the 
extracts from some of the leading authors from the ninth 
to the seventeenth centuries, collected in this chapter, 
the student will find that, at a very early epoch, the lan- 
guage was substantially what it is now, though its authog- 
raphy resembled but little our present mode of spelling. 
This difference may even present at first some difficulties, 
which a few explanations no doubt will readily remove. 

In the beginning of the twelfth century, Saint Bernard 
said : " Ne fuir mies ; ne dottier mies. II ne vient mies a ar- 
mes ; il te requiert ne mies por dampnier, mais por salvier" ; 
which, translated into Modern French, would read : "Ne 
fuis pas ; ne tremble pas. II (Dieu) ne vient pas avec des ar- 
mes ; il ne te cherche pas pour te damner, mais pour te sau- 
ver"; certainly a very slight difference in wording. Nor 
is it probable that his pronunciation differed much from 
what we hear at present, making allowance for a dialectic 
difference, the author being a native of Burgundy. These 
dialectic differences, however, varying as they did in every 
feudal division of France, must have necessarily affected 
in some way the mode of spelling of each author and 
each copyist, in the absence of any standard authority, 
and in their endeavors to represent by written signs the 
various sounds, accents, and intonations of all these dia- 
lects, of which each person, of course, thought his own 
the best. In reference to this, a translator of the Psalter, 
" en laingue lorenne selonc la veriteit commune at selonc lou 
commun laingaige" in the fourteenth century, remarks : 
" Pour ceu que nulz ne tient en son parleir ne rigle certenne, 
mesure ne raison } est laingue romance si corrompue qua poinne 
li uns entent laultre, et a poinne peut-on trouveir a jour d'ieu 
persone qui saiche escrire y anteir ne prononcieir en une meisme 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



593 



semblant menieire, mais escript, ante et pronounce li tins en une 
guise, et li aultre en une aultre" v Comparing this with the 
remarks made by Caxton, some hundred years later, in 
reference to English orthography, 2 we shall readily come 
to the conclusion that this unsettled mode of wording and 
of spelling must have existed in French, as indeed it has in 
all languages, until some standard, based on either custom 
or principle, was considered correct and adopted as such. 
Old French, it must be remembered, was spoken a 
long time before it was written, and the words must have 
undergone thousands of variations before there was any 
thought of committing them to writing. Mixed up in 
various ways by ignorant Celts and Romans, the lan- 
guage in the earlier stages of its formation was only a 
confused jargon, in which each one put as much as he 
knew of his own and of each other's language. Fortu- 
nately the vocabulary of the uneducated is not very 
extensive, and thus the written Latin was damaged 
much less than the unwritten Celtic by this process of 
amalgamation. As time went on, however, and dialects 
were formed, the first attempts of the clergy to write out 
their sermons in the language of their district must have 
been exceedingly embarrassing. Having only the Roman 
alphabet to represent sounds and articulations, which for 
generations had been altered, dulled, and flattened in the 
mouths of Celts, Franks, and others, and differing in utter- 
ance from one place to another, it was impossible for 
them to write down the words as they heard them spoken, 
or to invent new signs for every sound which ignorance 
had contrived, for every articulation ill use had pervert- 
ed. The only means at hand to accomplish the task ap- 
proximately was to reduce the written word to its origi- 
nal Latin form, as far as was remembered, thereby intro- 
ducing even a certain uniformity into the language of the 
pulpit, which tended to diminish considerably the number 
and variety of the dialects that had sprung up all over 
the country, century after century. Later on, when Celtic 
and Teutonic idioms were all absorbed into the Romance 
language, the written documents that have come down 
to us exhibit an increasing disposition on the part of 
their authors to be guided by the sound of words as well 
as by their etymology, which greatly assists us in deci- 

1 Leroux de Lincy, Introduction du Livre des Rois. 

2 See pages 361 and 451. 



594 APPENDIX, 

phering ancient manuscripts by reading them aloud. For, 
whatever be the mode in which the word is written, it 
makes but little difference in point of its significance ; as 
indeed we know, from experience, that every relation be- 
tween sign and sound is conventional and often arbitrary. 
In English, for instance, we have a multitude of sounds 
and peculiar intonations, all of which are represented by 
five vowels only. These, as well as many consonants, are 
sometimes silent, then again pronounced, and in some in- 
stances stand one to represent another. Take such words, 
for instance, as angle and angel, cough and rough, those and 
whose, hoe and shoe, colonel and kernel, the verb to read, its 
participle read, and the color red, — and fancy the perplex- 
ity of Macaulay's South Sea Islander on the ruins of St, 
Paul's, trying to pronounce English as he finds it written. 
Still, to-day we find no difficulty in reading from these 
signs fluently and correctly ; and fluent reading is even 
one of the first accomplishments acquired by our young 
people at school. To one who knows a language, its an- 
tiquated forms can cause but little trouble ; and if he does 
not know it, no spelling, good or bad, will make him know 
it better. Considering, then, that modern orthography 
is only a modification of older forms, which have been 
changed gradually, partly on etymological considerations, 
partly on account of their not representing sufficiently 
well the spoken language according to later notions, we 
may come to the conclusion, and adopt as a rule, that — 
" Words were pronounced in former times very much as 
they are now, however differently written." Thus nies, 
altre, nepvuld, il donet, eslire, cner, muete, hues, iex, suer, 
anme, and the like, look odd and barbarous enough ; but 
pronounce them as we now would niece, autre, neveu, il 
donne, dire, cceur, meute, bceufs, yeux, sceur, dme, and they 
are quite familiar. By this single rule, to which we have 
already adverted in speaking of Early English manu- 
scripts, we get rid at once of fully half the difficulty in 
reading texts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, if 
only we look at them kindly and attentively, not with the 
passive interest which we would take in a curious fossil 
or dry Egyptian mummy, but rather in the light of some 
dear old friend or relative who should happen to look a 
little quaint in her old-fashioned dress and manners. 

To this main rule we may add some minor ones, which 
seem to correspond to the three qualities which, accord- 
ing to Palsgrave, in his Esclaircissement, the French of his 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



595 



time aimed at in their pronunciation — " harmony, con- 
ciseness, and distinct articulation." Thus, for the sake of 
harmony of sound, we shall find that every kind of hiatus 
was carefully avoided ; that only such consonants as were 
necessary to give distinctness to the word were well ar- 
ticulated ; and that all others which were retained in the 
word to show its etymology were usually not pronounced. 
The following brief review of the French vowels and con- 
sonants will complete our explanation of the principles of 
orthography and pronunciation observed in olden times. 

Before the invention of the circumflex accent, the long 
a was increased by the duplication of that letter, or by 
an e preceding or an i following it. Thus, while pro- 
nouncing age, they wrote, aage, cage, or aige, up to the sev- 
enteenth century. It is even probable that ai was always 
pronounced as a long ; such forms as montaigne, saige, 
raige, langaige, for montagne, sage, rage, langage, seem to 
prove it. We even now write indifferently _/> vats and je 
vas, which is evidently a remnant of that practice. 

The vowel e represents three sounds — e mute, /, and 
eu. It was mute as now at the end of words of more than 
one syllable, or when preceding an a, to indicate that this 
a was long, as explained above. Followed by a final r or 
z it was pronounced e, as it is at present in the Avords nez, 
chez, aimer, cordonnier. Anywhere else, as an accented 
syllable, it sounded eu. Emperere, vendere, vies, diex, were 
pronounced empereur, vendeur, vieux, dieu. In the word 
trouvere, modern pronunciation has allowed itself to be 
guided by ancient orthography ; in the middle ages it 
was pronounced trouveur, which gave a more distinct idea 
of its meaning. Before i and u the letter e formed at first 
a distinct syllable ; but this did not last long, and very 
early such words as que je feisse began to be pronounced 
as que je fisse y 1 meur, miir ; seur, sllr, etc. As long as the 
letter u represented the sound ou the e preceding it was 
maintained to indicate that u had the sound which it has 
at present, as: heurler, eune blesseure, which were pro- 
nounced then as they are now, hurler and une blessure. 
From the moment u and ou were made to represent two 
different sounds the e disappeared before u, except where 
eu forms part of the conjugation of the verb avoir — eu, 
nous eilmes, que j'eusse — another remnant of the time, which 

1 In connection with this, it is interesting to observe that Cicero, in his 
third book de oratore, corrects Cotta for suppressing the e and only pronouncing 
the i in words which formerly were written with ei, as leiber, leibertas, etc. 



596 APPENDIX. 

may also be observed in the popular pronunciation of 
Eugene, Eustache, in which the initial e is not heard. 

The vowel i before e was not heard, and rockier, cou- 
chier, vergier, were pronounced rocker, coucker, and verger, 
as at present. When following another vowel, the office 
of the letter i seems to have been to impart to the sound 
thus represented a peculiar modulation ; and even as ai 
stands for a, as we have seen, so ei stands for e ; oi for ; 
and ui for u. Another detail is to be observed in regard 
to the letter i. In the same way as the Romans pro- 
nounced j like ii, so the Early French writers use i for/ in 
many instances. Thus we find ie iorje; but especially is 
this the case when the pronoun follows its verb, as : vour- 
roie, aie, pensoie, which contractions must be pronounced as 
if written voudrais-je, ai-je, pensais-je. 

The vowel had the same sound which it has at pres- 
ent. Followed by an i, it did not then make a diphthong, 
but was pronounced shorter, as even now is done in oig- 
non, empoigner. They wrote cigoigne, but they said cigogne. 
How they pronounced histoire and gloire may be inferred 
from the derivatives historien, glorieux. The also repre- 
sented the sound ou. Thus jor was pronounced jour ; p or, 
pour ; Bologne, Boulogne ; forvoyer, fourvoyer, etc. It some- 
times sounded eu. Dolor, which made douloureux, has also 
left douleur. Labor has left both labour and labeur. The 
former sound occurred more in the southern, the latter in 
the northern dialects. In order to represent the sound 
of eu, the Normans placed an e before or after the 0, as 
noeve, joene, empereor, jugleor} which were pronounced 
neuve, jeune, empereur, jougleur, or jongleur. We follow 
now the same method in the word ceil, where ce repre- 
sents the sound eu. 

The vowel u kept for a long time its Latin sound of 
ou, and amour was spelled amtir ; nous, mis ; coutelas, cute- 
las ; coupe, cupe, etc. Followed by an e, this vowel had 
exactly the sound which we have given it since by invert- 
ing their positions ; suer, hues, il puet, were pronounced 
sceur, bceufs, il peut. Traces of this practice are found in 
the words cueiller, orgueil, cercueil, which are spelled as in 
the Middle Ages. Before the present sound of the vowel 
u was represented by that letter, it was indicated some- 
times by an e placed before that vowel, as we have seen 

1 Joglar, juglar in Langue d'oc ; jugleor, jongleor in Langue d'oi'l, from the 
Latin joculator. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



597 



above, but generally by an i following it, as : e'tuide, ilbuit, 
ilfuit, which were pronounced etude, il bilt, il fut. The 
Latin mode of using u and v indiscriminately was kept 
up in France until the sixteenth century, and was the 
cause of much confusion. The future of avoir was first 
written avrai, and afterward became aurai ; januarius, on 
the contrary, became Janvier. Deus being written Devs 
as well, has made Deu and Dev ; 1 hence the forms deusse, 
■devesse, de'esse. Sometimes a diseresis over the letter v 
served to indicate that it was to be pronounced as our 
present u. 

Two vowels placed in succession were at first pro- 
nounced separately, as : seur, meur, recalling their origin 
securus, maturus. In the same way traditor, before becom- 
ing traitre, was written tra'itre, and sometimes even tra- 
hitre, so as to indicate clearly its pronunciation. The latter* 
form has survived in the words trahir and trahison. Aider 
and aide, derived from adjuvare, were likewise written 
aider and aide, and are still so pronounced in Picardy. 

The French consonants are the same as the Latin, and, 
as in Latin, many were silent in certain positions, though 
not always following the same rules. A final consonant 
seems to have imparted sometimes only a peculiar sound 
to the vowel preceding it, without being itself pronounced. 
Thus ex was pronounced eux ; iex, yeux ; Diex, Dieu ; in 
the eleventh century we find Dex for Dieu. The/ in nep- 
vuld, which remained for a long time in the word nep- 
veu, now written neveu, indicated its Latin origin, nepos. 
The intelligent reader must have already noticed several 
instances where English orthography and traditions of 
old Norman pronunciation may serve as a key to many 
old forms now obsolete in French, but in full vigor yet 
in English. 

The letter k, which is not used in Modern French, is 
constantly found in manuscripts of the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries, and gradually disappeared in the course 
of the century following. Ke, ki, kel, kar, katre, karacter, 
etc., found especially in Norman compositions of that 
time, have since been written que, qui, quel, car, quatre, 
caractere. Kex, keux, koke, in English " cook," is afterward 
found in the form of queux, maitre-queux. Chien, chat, 
chateau, chanson, charrette, were then written kien, kat, kas- 
tel, kansoun, karette, and probably so pronounced, as we 

1 On the loss of the final s, see note I, page 577. 



598 APPENDIX. 

may infer from the peasant language in Picardy. The 
word choeur, from the Latin chorus, is still pronounced kceur. 

The letter /, when following the vowels a, e, or o, had 
the value of our present u, placed in the same position. 
Thus altre, cheval, chevel, licol were pronounced autre, che- 
vau, cheveu, licou. This ancient pronunciation explains 
the plural form of nouns ending in al; and when we now 
say cheval, egal, it is a return to ancient orthography on 
etymological considerations, while in writing chevaux, 
e'gaux, we employ a new orthography to express an an- 
cient pronunciation. We now write cheveu for what in 
the Middle Ages they wrote chevel, and derived by the 
modern pronunciation of the latter form, they have made 
the words chevelu, chevelure, echevele', of which the / disap- 
pears again in e'cheveau. This last word, moreover, shows 
the close relation between the forms el, eu, and eau, as 
pellis, peau ; camelus, chameau ; agnellus, agneau ; ramellus, 
rameau ; pratellum, pre'au, etc. These variations it is im- 
portant to observe, as the word may assume different 
forms in the pen of ancient writers, according to their 
more or less conformity with the original Latin. 

The final t was characteristic of the third person sin- 
gular : il at, il donet, il aimet. It was not pronounced ex- 
cept before a vowel : at il, donet il, aimet il. Modern or- 
thography has suppressed this t, but has been obliged to 
return to it as a euphonic letter, in the interrogative form, 
third person singular between the verb and the pronoun ; 
a-t-il, aime-t-il, aimera-t-il. 

As regards the juxtaposition of consonants, the rule is 
that, when two or more consonants come together, only 
one is pronounced. Thus esponge is pronounced eponge ; 
debte, dette ; subject, sujet ; loign, loin. We still follow this 
rule in the words seign, vingt, corps, temps, etc. The plan 
of suppressing letters, and other contrivances lately pro- 
posed for English as well as French and other modern 
languages, in order to make the written word look exactly 
as it sounds, on phonetic principles, is of a very doubtful 
propriety. It may be an advantage perhaps to the un- 
educated, who will naturally adopt it, and phonographers 
may favor the idea ; but to the scholar it would be a de- 
plorable loss, as it would kill the word by stripping it of 
all its etymological features, and reduce it to a mere sig- 
nal, no more or less than the call of a bugle or a soldier's 
drum. As an instance of the importance of preserving 
etymological letters we give the word faubourg, which, 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 



599 



in the thirteenth century, was written forsbourg, that is, 
that part of the city situated beyond its regular inclosure — 
the mediaeval forisburgus. Deceived by the pronuncia- 
tion, which kept the rs silent, they first began to write 
fobourg. Then, in the fifteenth century, in order to give 
it some sort of sense, they wrote les faux bourgs, whence 
finally came the word faubourg, which has no sense at all. 
Every language has some words that have been thus ill- 
treated, but the mass are full of life with well-defined 
meanings. To the ignorant these may be conveyed in a 
vague manner by the means of sound alone, and so they 
may serve well enough his simple purposes ; but to the 
scholar the written word presents additional features 
which reveal its vital principle, and which, once destroyed, 
would spoil it for him as an instrument of fine thought 
and clear communication. 

This digression seemed necessary to show how letters 
may be missing in the words of some old texts, while in 
others again they are superabundant, according as either 
phonetic or etymological considerations were prevailing 
with their authors. As a general rule, though, in the ab- 
sence of any accepted authority on orthography, there 
was in former times but little regularity of spelling, and, 
in the older specimens especially, every writer seems to 
have contented himself with putting together such com- 
bination of letters as he imagined would best express the 
sound of the word he was using, without at all considering 
what letters others used, or what he himself had used on 
former occasions, often on the same page, for exactly the 
same purpose. This has been so in every language, and 
by an intelligent reader is easily rectified. Webster, in 
his " Dictionary of the English Language," says : " A great 
portion of Saxon words are written with different letters, 
by different authors, most of them are written two or three 
different ways, and some of them fifteen or twenty." But 
this should not astonish us when even such a name as 
that of William the Conqueror occurs in six different 
forms on the Tapestry of Bayeux, 1 and when in the time 
of Shakespeare his name was spelled in fourteen different 
ways. 2 This, however, did not prevent that name from 

1 Nvntii Wilielrai dvcis venervnt ad Widonem. — Vbi nvntii Willelmi. . . . 
— Hie venit nvntivs ad Wilgelmvm dvcem. — Hie Willielmvs dvx et exercitvs 
ejvs venervnt ad montem Michaelis. — Hie Willem venit Bagias. — Hie est Wilel. 

2 In the council book of the corporation of Stratford, during the period that 
John Shakspeare, the poet's father, was a member of the municipal body, " The 



600 APPENDIX. 

being pronounced then as it is at present, which will show 
the importance of the rule that, " in reading ancient docu- 
ments, we should always give the words their modern 
pronunciation." By following this advice, and commenc- 
ing with authors of the more recent date, and from them 
back, century by century to the earlier documents, we 
have no doubt that, with proper application and some 
linguistic tact, the student will soon be able to read every 
specimen in the following pages to his entire satisfaction. 



Oath of Louis the German, a. d. 842. 
First monument of the French La?zguage. 

The kings of France of the second race adopted, after the example- of 
Charlemagne, the injudicious practice of dividing their dominions among their 
children, whose ambition, thus excited, led to a long succession of civil discord. 
The sons of Louis the Pious, even during his lifetime, were constantly in 
arms against each other, and often against their father ; and their dissensions 
after his death produced a dreadful waste of blood during the war which was 
terminated by the destructive battle of Fontenet, in June, 841. It was there- 
fore thought necessary that their reconciliation should be marked by the great- 
est possible degree of solemnity. Their respective armies assembled at Stras- 
burg, March, 842, as witnesses and parties to the Oath by which they bound 
themselves to rest satisfied with the division of territory finally adjudged to 
each ; and, that the terms of this Oath might be perfectly intelligible to all, it 
was translated into the vulgar tongue of the several nations whom it concerned. 
Louis the German addressed the French army of Charles the Bald in Ro- 
mance ; the latter read his oath in Tudesque or Teutonic, and both received the 
assent of the troops to the agreement in the same languages, respectively. 

It appears from this document, the original of which is preserved in the 
Vatican Library, and of which a facsimile copy is found on the plate opposite 
next page, that the Romance of the year 842, which very nearly resembles the 
present Proven9al, was the general language of France, and not a southern 
dialect, as, from this resemblance, it has been by some supposed, because the 
provinces of Aquitaine and Neustria were the original dominions of Charles ; 
they were anew confirmed to him by the treaty in question, and their inhabi- 
tants furnished the larger part of his army. It is also remarkable that this 
document, with the exception of the proper names, does not contain a word of 
Celtic or German origin. 

Ergo xvi kalend. marcii Lodhuwicus et Karolus in civitate, quae 
olim Argentaria vocabatur, nunc autem Strasburg vulgo dicitur, con- 
venerunt y et sacramenta, quae subter notata sunt, Lodhuwicus romana, 
Karolus vero teudisca lingua juraverunt. Ac sic ante sacramentum 
circumfusam plebem alter teudisca , alter roinana lingua alloquuti 
sunt. Lodhuwicus autem, qui major natu, prior exorsus sic coepit : 

name occurs one hundred and sixty-six times, under fourteen different modes 
of orthography, viz. : Shackesper, Shackespere, Shacksper, Shakspere, Shake- 
spere, Shaksper, Shakspare, Shakspeyr, Shakyspere, Shakspire, Shaxpeare, 
Shaxsper, Shakxpere, Shaxpear." — Litt. Gaz. et Lond. and Par. obs., fan. 5, 
1840. 



PLATE III, 



O&tfc of [ojjij-t^e-Qerm&n. 

P*-odo*Httti~ c<J>xp\ an pMc dfvvwconmn 
falu^ntent . &ft c6 ^uau&nr • tnq uAmrdr 
famr dc poAr mc^una* • fifoUtAraieo . 
cift meonfradre karlo • <V m&J nuMi** 
^mcaJ Wn&cofc* ft C tt om j? drevt foi* 
fradra (KUiaj- di* • J no qiud %l mtatxrr 
A f*«f • f rdbtiwlfccr mil pU\J nnqu* 
prmdrax ciuim^on uoi cift • mecm/n^ire' 



Oabjz of- tfce Sfoidiepy of Qfe&rfej-tfce-gald. 

utaf ptorr*** 1 *** # q u £ /bnfradrekarlo 
mrafc confer uax • ft Rartuf meof/en<l*&, 

<U&o p*rr nlofCAtvct • A tore***** wair no«i 
Untpotf vnno nmtuu c*i eo rerurnai* 
irucpovf- \n nulla A vxh\ contra, lojihu 
utvur nunlv imax* • 

F&e-jircul& of t^eoldejt monument ext&nt 
of t£e ppencjz l&ngu&oe .J\.p., Ski ^pejepved 
inline I ifop^py of t^c Vatican in F^ome. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 6oi 

"Quotiens Lodharius me et hunc fratrem meum" etc. Cumque Ka- 
rolus haec eadem verba romana lingua perorasset, Lodhuvicus, quo- 
niam major natu erat, prior haec deinde se servaturum testatus est : 

Pro deo amur et pro christian poblo 1 et nostro commun sal- 
vament, d'ist di en avant, in quant deus savir et podir me dunat, 
si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo et in adiudha et in cadhuna 
cosa, si cum om per dreit son fradra salvar dist, in o quid il mi 
altresi fazet, et ab Ludher nul plaid numquam prindrai, qui meon 
vol cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit. 

Quod cum Lodhuvicus explesset, Karolus teudisca lingua sic haec 
eadem verba testatus est : In godes minna ind in thes christianes 
folches ind unser bedherd gehaltnissi, fon thesemo dage fram- 
mordes, s6 fram s6 mir got gewizci indi mahd furgibit, so haldih 
tesan minan bruodher, soso man mit rehtu sinan bruodher seal, 
in thiu thaz er mig s6 sama duo, indi mit Ludheren in nohheiniu 
thing ne gegango, the minan willon imo ce scadhen werdhen. 

Sacramentum autem quod utrorumque populus quique propria lin- 
gua testatus est, romana lingua sic se habet : Si Lodhuvigs sagra- 
ment, que son fradre Karlo 2 jurat, conservat, et Karlus meos 
sendra de suo part non los tanit, si io returnar non Tint pois, ne io 
ne neuls, cui eo returnar int pois, 3 in nulla aiudha contra Lodhu- 
wig nun li iv er. 4 

Teudisca aute?n lingua : Oba Karl then eid, then er sinemo 

1 Christian poblo is the complement of salvament, as Deo is the complement 
of amur. 

2 Fradre Karlo is the indirect complement of jurat. 

3 Si io returnar non Vint pois, literally translated is si je ne puis Ven de'tour- 
ner. In Latin compound words the prefix re has two different meanings : First, 
that of rursus, as in reficere, relegere ; and, second, that of retro, as in refiuere, 
repellere. It has the latter meaning in returnar, " to turn off ; to draw away." 
Int is the Latin inde; in the tenth century it was written ent. See note I, page 

589. 

4 These last two words, iv and er, may be somewhat difficult to under- 
stand, but are readily accounted for by a comparison with the Teutonic version. 
The form er occurs still in the twelfth century, in the sense of the Latin ero ; we 
find the example of it in the Chronique des dues de Normandie, i, p. 149 : 

Amis me seiez e aidables. 

Et j'os er par tut socurables ; 

Seum mais un en amor fine, 

Leiaus, durable et enterrine. 
Iv is an abbreviation of ivi, in Latin ibi. In this sentence the adverb iv 
performs the same office as the adverb int ; both have reference to the same 
noun, which is not expressed but understood ; and one of these adverbs being 
expressed, clearness and precision require the other to be expressed likewise. 
The literal translation, therefore, would be : " Si je ne puis Yen (de ce dessein) 
detourner, ni moi ni aucun que je puis en (de ce dessein) detourner, ne Yy (en ce 
dessein) serai en aucune aide contre Ludhwig." 

Translation into Modern French of the Oath sworn by Louis the German : 
" Pour l'amour de Dieu, et pour notre commun salut et celui du peuple Chre- 
tien, dor^navant, autant que Dieu me donnera savoir et pouvoir, je preserverai 
mon frere Karle que voila, et par aide et par toute chose, ainsi qu'on doit, par 
devoir, preserver son frere, pourvu qu'il en fasse de meme pour moi ; et ne 
40 



602 APPENDIX. 

bruodher Ludhuwige gesuor, geleistit, indi Ludhuwig min herro, 
then er imo gesuor, forbrihchit, ob ih inan es irwenden ne mag, 
noh ih noh therd nohhein, then ih es irwenden mag, widhar Karle 
imo ce follusti ne wirdhit. 



Cantilene de Sainte Eulalie. 

The manuscript of the following poem on the martyrdom of Sainte Eulalie 
was discovered in 1837 in the library of the ancient abbey of Saint-Amand, 
whence it has been taken to the library of Valenciennes, where it is now pre- 
served. The writing of this manuscript bears the character of the tenth cent- 
ury. This poem, which is the earliest yet found in Langue d'oil, presents the 
kind of imperfect rhymes called " rhymes of assonance," in which conseilliers is 
made to rhyme with del; chielt with christien ; tost with coist ; pagiens with 
chief ; del with preier, etc. In the first two lines, and in the last line, it will 
be also noticed that feminine substantives and adjectives still terminate in a, as 
in Latin. 

Buona pulcella 1 fut Eulalia ; 
bel auret corps, bellezour anima. 

Voldrent la veintre li deo inimi, 
voldrent la faire diaule servir. 

Elle non eskoltet les mals conselliers, 
qu'elle deo raneiet, chi maent sus en ciel, 

Ne por or ned argent ne paramenz, 
por manatee regiel ne preiement. 

Niule cose non la pouret omque pleier, 
la polle sempre non amast lo deo menestier. 2 

prendrai jamais avec Ludher aucun accommodement qui, par ma volonte, soit 
au prejudice de mon frere Karle ici present." 

Translation into Modern French of the Oath sworn by the soldiers of 
Charles the Bald : " Si Ludhwig garde le serment qu'il jure a son frere Karle, 
et si Karle, mon seigneur, de son cote ne le tient pas, si je ne puis le detourner 
de cette violation, ni moi ni aucun que je puisse en detourner, nous ne lui serons 
en cela d'aucun aide contre Ludhwig." 

1 Pulcella, in the twelth century pulcile, now pucelle, from the Latin puella, 
itself a diminutive of puer, and which also made polle, found in the tenth line. 
Notice that in this passage the complement of the verb pleier, after being once 
expressed by the pronoun la is again used as a noun in polle. This term, 
though not now correct, is still heard in the mouth of the people. Prosper 
Merimee makes a soldier say : " Cela va nous couter bon pour l'avoir cette 
fameuse redoute ; " and Moliere : 

L'une de son galant, en adroite femelle, 

Fait fausse confidence a son epoux fidele, 

Qui dort en surete sur un pareil appas, 

Et le plaint, ce galant, des soins qu'il ne prend pas. 

LEcole des femmes, acte I, sc. I. 
Notice also the suppression of the conjunction que in the same sentence, the 
full construction of which would be : " Non la pouret omque pleier que sempre 
non amast lo Deo menestier," — a common ellipsis among the earliest French 
writers. 

2 In other words : Elle ne se fut laisse persuader de renier Dieu par les 
mauvais conseillers, ni pour or, etc. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 603 

E poro fut presentede Maximiien, 
chi rex eret a eels dis soure pagiens. 

II li enortet, dont lei nonque chielt, 
qued elle fuiet lo nom christiien. 

Ell' ent adunet lo suon element, 
melz sostendreiet les empedementz, 

Qu'elle perdesse sa virginitet i 1 
poros furet morte a grand honestet. 

Enz enl fou la getterent, com arde tost, 
elle colpes non auret, poro nos coist. 

A ezo nos voldret concreidre ti rex pagiens ; 
ad une spede li roveret tolir io chief. 

La domnizelle celle kose non contredist, 
volt lo seule lazsier, si ruovet Krist. 

In figure de colomb volat a ciel. 
tuit oram, que por nos degnet preier, 

Qued auuisset de nos Christus mercit 
post la mort et a lui nos laist venir 

Par souue dementia. 

TRANSLATION. 

Eulalie fut une bonne jeune fille ; 
elle avait beau corps et plus belle ame. 
Les ennemis de Dieu voulurent triompher d'elle, 
voulurent lui faire servir le diable. 
Elle n'eut ecoute les mauvais conseillers, 
a/in qu'elle reniat Dieu qui habite la-haut dans le ciel, 
ni pour or, ni pour argent, ni pour parures ; 
ni par menace de roi, ni par priere ; 
et aucune chose ne la put jamais faire flechir 
la jeune fille, de telle sorte que elle n'aimat pas tou jours le ser- 
vice de Dieu. 
Aussi fut-elle traduite devant Maximien, 
qui etait roi des pai'ens a cette 6poque. 
II l'exhorte a ce dont elle ne se soucie jamais, 
sawir, qu'elle abandonne le nom chretien. 2 
Avant que d'abandonner ses principes, 
elle souffrirait plut6t les tortures, 
Elle souffrirait plutdt de perdre sa virginite\ 
Pour cela elle est morte avec grand honneur. 
lis la jeterent dans le feu, de faeon a la faire bruler vite. 

1 Sostendreiet has for its first complement a noun {les empedementz), and for 
its second an incidental preposition {qu'elle perdessc sa virginitet). Such con- 
structions are not uncommon yet in plain colloquial language, such as for in- 
stance : Je desire autant que vous votre manage avec ma cousine et que, tous 
deux, vous puissiez £tre heureux ensemble. 

2 Nom chrMen is an expression still in use for christianisme : Ce sultan fut 
le plus redoubtable ennemi du nom chretien. 



<5b4 APPENDIX. 

Elle n'avait pas de faute h se reprocher ; c'est pourquoi elle ne 

brula pas. 
Le roi paien ne se voulut fier a cela ; 
il commanda de lui couper la tete avec une epee. 
La demoiselle ne sy'opposa point ; 
elle veut quitter le monde si Christ 1'ordonne. 
Elle s'envola au ciel sous la forme d'une colombe. 
Tous nous prions qu'elle daigne prier pour nous. 
Afin que Christ ait piti^ de nous 
apres la mort, et nous laisse venir a lui 
par sa clemence. 

The next important monument in the history of French 
literature is the " Laws of William the Conqueror," found 
on pp. 270-273. 

Chanson de Roland. 

The most ancient French epopee, and the most remarkable composition of 
the period, is the famous Chanson de Roland. In its original form it dates back 
as far as Louis the Pious, whose anonymous biographer imforms us that, even 
then, the heroes who fell at the battle of Roncevaux were the object of popular 
songs. The form in which it has come down to us is supposed to be from the 
pen of Turold, a Norman trouvere, the son of William the Conqueror's precep- 
tor, and afterward Abbot of Peterborough. The subject of the poem may 
be outlined as follows : 

Spain is conquered ; Saragossa alone is still holding out, but the Saracen 
king proposes to surrender the city, and to receive baptism. Ganelon, a Christian 
knight, is sent to treat about the terms of surrender ; but he proves traitor, and 
engages the heathen king to hold out until the retreat of the main army, when 
he promises to lead Roland and the elite of the Christians, who form the rear 
guard, into an ambush. Every arrangement is made for the intended assault. 
Charlemagne has commenced his retreat, and the bulk of his army is already 
across the mountains, when Roland and his band are suddenly attacked by over- 
whelming forces. In this strait he might easily have summoned to his aid the 
main body of the army by a mere blast on his olifant, an ivory horn of marvelous 
power, the sound of which would surely have reached the emperor and brought 
the needed assistance, but he disdained this act of prudence, suggested to him 
by Oliver, his faithful friend and companion, and determined to meet the enemy 
on his own ground. Impossible it would be to describe the high deeds of valor 
attributed to Roland, Archbishop Turpin, Oliver, and the small band of Christian 
soldiers fighting against fearful odds. Every thing here is grand, noble, and 
homeric — the site, the struggle, and the prowess of the combatants. Thousands 
of Saracens are slain, and still their numbers are increasing, while Roland's men, 
falling one after another, leave him with but few to bear the brunt of battle. 
Overcome at last, he blows his horn, and the emperor, who knows its sound, 
hastens back to the aid of his heroic nephew. But too late, alas ! all the soldiers 
have perished. Oliver, too, has fallen after prodigies of valor. Roland and the 
Archbishop Turpin once more put to flight a furious band of infidels ; but, ut- 
terly exhausted with fatigue and the loss of blood, they die in their turn, still 
facing the enemy, at the moment their avenger appears on the scene of battle. 

The following fragment describes the moment when Roland, exhausted and 
ready to die, seeks shelter under the shade of a pine-tree near a large rock, 
against which he tries to break his trusty sword, his famous Durendal, lest it 
may fall into the hands of the infidels : 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 60$ 

Qo sent Rollanz la veue a perdue, 
met sei sur piez, quanqu'il poet s'esvertiiet ; 
en sun visage sa culur ad perdue, 
tint Durendal s'espee tute nue. 
dedevant lui ad une pierre brune : 
dis colps i fiert par doel e par rancune, 
cruist li aciers, ne fraint ne ne s'esgruignet. 
e dist li quens ' sancte Marie, aiue ! 
e, Durendal, bone si mare fustes ! 
quant jo n'ai prud, de vus nen ai mais cure ! 
tantes batailles en camp en ai vencues 
e tantes terres larges escumbatues, 
que Carles tient, ki la barbe ad canue. 
ne vos ait hum ki pur altre s'en fuiet ! 
mult bons vassals vus ad lung tens tenue, 
jamais n'iert tels en France l'asolue.' 

TRANSLATION. 

Roland sent qu'il a perdu la vue ; 

se leve sur ses pieds, tant qu'il peut s'evertue ; 

en son visage sa couleur a perdue. 

Son epee Durendal il la tient toute nue. 

Devant lui se dressait une pierre brune : 

de depit et de facherie il y d^tache dix coups, 

1'acier grince, sans rompre ni s'ebrecher. 

Ah ! dit le comte, sainte Marie, aidez-moi ! 

Eh ! bonne Durendal, je plains votre malheur ; 

vous m'etes inutile a cette heure , indifferente jamais. 

J'ai par vous gagne tant de batailles, 

tant de pays, tant de terres conquises, 

qu' aujourd'hui possede Charles a la barbe chenue. 

Jamais homme ne soit votre maitre a qui un autre fera peur \ 

Longtemps vous futes aux mains d'un capitaine 

dont jamais le pareil ne sera vu en France, pays libre. 



Admonition. 

From a Manuscript believed to be from the early part of the Eleventh 

Century. 

Nos jove omne quan dius estam, 

de grant follia per folledat parlam, 

quar no nos membra per cui vivri esperam, 

qui nos soste tanquan per terra nam, 

e qui nos pais que no murem de fam, 

per cui salves mes per pur tan quell clamam. 



606 APPENDIX. 

Nos jove omne menam tar mal jovent, 
queng nono prezasistrada son parent, 
senor, ne par sill men a malament, 
ni lus vel laitre sis fais falls sacrament. 

TRANSLATION. 

Nous jeunes hommes tous tant que nous sommes, parlons fol- 
lement des grandes folies, car il ne nous souvient pas de celui par 
qui nous esperons vivre, qui nous soutient tant que nous allons 
sur terre, et qui nous nourrit de peur que nous ne mourions de 
faim, lui par qui nous sommes sauves, pourvu que nous elevions 
notre voix vers lui. 

Nous jeunes hommes menons si mal notre jeunesse, qu'aucun 
de nous ne prend garde aux voies frayees par ses peres et par les 
anciens ; si elles menent a. mauvaise fin, ni les uns ni les autres 
ne prennent garde s'ils font un faux serment. 



From a Sermon of the same Period. 
Believed to be a Translation of Saint Athanasius. 

Kikumkes vult salf estre devant totes choses besoing est qu'il 
tienget la comune foi. 

Laquele si caskun entiere e n£ent malmis me ne guarderas 
sans dotance pardurablement perirat. 

Iceste est a certes la comune fei que uns deu en trinitet et la 
trinket en unitet aorums. ... 

translation. 

Quiconque veut etre sauv6, avant toute chose doit tenir la 
commune foi. 

Si chacun ne la garde entiere et sans melange, sans aucun 
doute il perira pour toujours. 

Cette commune foi est bien certainement que un Dieu en 
Trinite et la Trinite en Unite nous adorions. . . . 



Translation of the Psalms, 

From the end of the Eleventh Century. 

LIBRI PSALMORUM VERSIO ANTIQUA GALLICS. 

PSALMUS I. 

i. Beneurez li huem chi ne alat el conseil des feluns, e en la 
veie des peccheurs ne stout, e en la chaere de pestilence ne sist ; 
2. Mais en la lei de nostre seignur la voluntet de lui, e en la sue 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 607 

lei purpenserat par jurn e par nuit. 3. Et iert ensement cume le 
fust qued est plantet dejuste les decurs des ewes, chi dunrat sun 
frut en sun tens. 4. Et sa fuille ne decurrat, e tiites les coses que 
il unques ferat serunt fait prospres. 5. Nient eissi li felun, nient 
eissi : mais ensement cume la puldre que li venz getet de la face 
de terre. 6. Empurice ne resurdent li felun en juise, ne li pecheur 
el conseil des dreituriers. 7. Kar nostre sire cuniiist la veie des 
justes e le eire des feluns perirat. 

TRANSLATION. 
PSEAUME I. 

1. Bienheureux est l'homme qui ne marche point selon le con- 
seil des mechants, et qui ne s'arrete point dans la voie des 
pdcheurs, et qui ne s'assied point au banc des moqueurs ; 

2. Mais qui prend plaisir en la loi de l'Eternel et qui medite 
jour et nuit en sa loi ; 

3. Car il sera comme un arbre plante pres des ruisseaux d'eaux, 
qui rend son fruit en sa saison, 

4. et duquel le feuillage ne se fletrit point, et ainsi tout ce 
qu'il fera prosperera. 

5. II n'en sera point ainsi des mechants, mais ils seront comme 
la poudre que le vent chasse au loin. 

6. C'est pourquoi les mechants ne subsisteront point en juge- 
ment, ni les p£cheurs dans l'assemblee des justes. 

7. Car Dieu connait la voie des justes ; mais la voie des 
mechants perira. 



Extract from the Four Books of Kings, 

From the beginning of the Twelfth Century. 

LI SECUND LIVRES DES REJS. 

Sathanas se eslevad encuntre Israel et entichad David qu'il 
feist anumbred ces de Israel e ces de Juda. Et li reis cumendad 
a Joab ki esteit maistre cunestables de la chevalerye le rei qe il 
alast par tutes les lign^es de Israel des Dan jesqe Bersabee e 
anumbrast le pople. 

translation. 

LE SECOND LIVRE DES ROIS. 

Satan s'61eva contre Israel et sugg£ra a David de faire d£nom- 
brer ceux d'Israel et ceux de Juda. Et le roi commanda a Joab, 
qui £tait maitre connetable de la chevalerie du roi, qu'il allat par 
toutes les families d'Israel, depuis Dan jusqu' a Bersabee, et qu'il 
d^nombrat le peuple. 



6o8 APPENDIX. 



Saint Bernard. 

Saint Bernard was born in 1091, in the village of Fontaine, in Burgundy, 
and died the 20th of April, 1153. Having become illustrious in the Church, 
and being endowed with a strong and powerful eloquence, he shook Europe to 
its very foundations when he preached the Crusades ; but, tired of so stormy a 
life, he retired to his abbey of Clairvaux, to finish his days there. The follow- 
ing extract is taken from a sermon for the Twelfth-night (Epiphany) : 

Hui vinrent li troi Roi querre lo soloil de justise que neiz 
estoit, de cui il est escrit : Cy ke vos uns bers vient, et Orianz e?i 
ses nonz. II ensevirent hui lo conduit de la novele estoil, et si 
aorerent le novel enfant de la Virgine. Ne prenons nos assi 
granz solaiz ci, sy cum en celei parole del Apostle, dont nos la 
davant avons parleit ? Cil apelet Deu, et cist lo dient assi, mais 
par oyvre et ne mies par voix. — Ke faites-vos, signor Roi, ke 
faites-vos? Aoreiz-vos dons un alaitant enfant en une vil maison, 
et enveloppeit en vilz draz ? Est dons cist enf es Deus ? — Deus 
est en son saint temple, et en ciel, en ses sieges, et vos en un vil 
estaule lo quareiz, et en les cors d'une femme ! — Ke faites-vos, 
ke vos or li offrez assi ? Est il dons Rois ? Ou est li royals sale, 
et li sieges royals, ou sunt li cours et li royals frequence ? — Est 
dons sale li estaules, siege li maingevre, cors li frequence de 
Joseph et de Marie ? Coment sunt devenuit si sots si saiges horn 
ki un petit enfant aorent, ki despeitaules est et por son aige et por 
la poverteit des siens ? 

Certes, chier freire, bien faisoit a detteir ke cist ne fussent 
escandaliziet, et k'il ne se tenussent por escharniz quant il si 
grant vilteit, et si grant poverteit vireint ? — Des la royal citeit ou 
il cuidarent troveir lo Roi, furent tramis en Betteem, petite vilate ; 
en un estaule entrerent et lai atroverent un enfancegnon envelo- 
peit en povres draz. Nul de totes ces choses ne lor furent a gre- 
vance. Li estaules ne lor fut onkes encontre cuer, n'en onkes 
ne furent ahurteit de povres draz, ne escandaliziet de l'enfance 
del laitant ; anz misent lor genoz a terre, si l'onorarent si cum 
Roi, et aorerent si cum Deu. Mais cil mismes les ensaigniavet 
ki amenes les avoit, et cil mismes les ensaigniavet par dedens e^i 
or cuer, ki par l'estoile les semonoit par deforz. Ceste appan- 
cions nostre Signor clarifiet vi cest jor, et li devocions et li hono- 
remenz des Rois lo fait devot et honoravle. 

TRANSLATION. 

A pareil jour, les trois Rois se mirent a la recherche du Soleil 
de justice qui venait de naitre, et dont il est ecrit : "UnRoisvous 
est ni du cdte" de V Orient" lis suivirent la route que leur indiqua 
l'etoile nouvelle, et ils adorerent l'enfant nouveau-ne de la vierge. 
Ne nous fierons-nous pas autant a cette parole qu'a celle de 
l'Ap6tre dont nous avons parle tout a l'heure ? L'Apdtre appela 
l'enfant Dieu, et les trois Rois l'appelerent de meme ; mais ce fut 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 609 

par Ieurs ceuvres et non par leurs paroles. — Que faites-vous, seig- 
neurs Rois, que faites-vous ? Vous adorez un enfant a la ma- 
melle, dans une vile Stable, et enveloppe* de vils langes. Cet en- 
fant est-il done un Dieu ? — Dieu est dans son saint temple et dans 
le ciel, sur son tr6ne, et vous le cherchez dans une vile Stable et 
dans le corps d'une femme ! — Que faites-vous, vous qui lui offrez 
ainsi de Tor ? Est-il done Roi ? Ou est alors l'appartement 
royal, le siege royal? ou est la cour, ou est l'entourage royal? — 
L'etable est-elle done une salle de reception, la mangeoire un 
trdne, et la presence de Joseph et de Marie une cour? Comment 
des hommes sages sont-ils devenus insenses au point d'adorer un 
petit enfant meprisable par son age et par la pauvrete* des siens ? 
Certes, chers freres, on devait s'attendre a ce que les Mages 
seraient scandalises, et qu'ils se regarderaient comme railles en 
voyant un si grand abaissement et une pauvrete* si grande. — Au 
lieu de la cite royale, ou ils pensaient trouver le Roi, ils furent 
conduits a Bethleem, petite bourgade. La, entr£s dans une 
Stable, ils y trouverent un tout petit enfant au maillot, enveloppe* 
de pauvres draps. Rien de tout cela ne r^ussit a les £branler ; 
ratable ne leur vint point a contre-cceur, ils ne furent point cho- 
qu£s de la pauvrete des langes, ni scandalises de l'age de cet en- 
fant a la mamelle ; mais ils mirent les genoux en terre, honorerent 
Jesus comme leur Roi, et l'adorerent comme leur Dieu ; car celui- 
la raeme les enseignait, qui les avait amenes, et celui-la qui au 
dehors les avait conduits gar une etoile, les guidait aussi au fond 
de leur cceur. Ce fut le jour ou nous sommes qui vit glorifier de 
la sorte Notre Seigneur. La devotion et l'hommage des rois rend 
done ce jour honorable et le consacre a la devotion. 



Maurice de Sully. 

Maurice de Sully, bishop of Paris, was born of very poor parents in the 
village of Sully, on the banks of the Loire, and studied at Paris, where he 
afterward taught theology. In 1165 he baptized Philip Augustus. At this 
period he had commenced building the cathedral of Notre Dame, the corner-stone 
of which was laid in 1163 by Pope Alexander III. He died the nth of Sep- 
tember, 1 196. The following extract from an explanation of the Lord's Prayer, 
as well as the preceding, both delivered before the people, afford good speci- 
mens of the spoken language of that time, and illustrate, moreover, the differ- 
ence of idiom in the different parts of the country. Both sermons are of the 
same epoch ; but that of Saint Bernard offers an instance of the provincial Ro- 
man dialect, while that of Maurice de Sully represents the language of Paris, 
principal center of the Langue d'oil : 

En trestotes les paroles et les orisons qui furent onques esta- 
blies ne dites en terre, si est li plus sainte et li plus haute la 
Patre nostre. Quar ceste nomeement establit Deus meismes, et 
commanda a ses Apostres ; et par ses Apostres le commanda a 
dire a tos ceus qui lui croient. Por ce est-elle plus dite et plus 



6lO APPENDIX. 

doit etre en sainte eglise que nule autre orisons ; mais ce sacies, 
por voir, que tels poes vos estre que plus demanded vos mal que 
bien a vostre ues quant vos dites la Patre nostre ; et porce que 
vos sacies que vos dites et que vos demandes a, Deu quant vos 
dites la Patre nostre, si vos dirons et demosterrons en romans ce 
que la latre a en soi, et ce que ele nos ensegne, etc. 

TRANSLATION. 

De toutes les paroles et les prieres qui jamais ont et6 r^citees 
et dites sur la terre, la plus sainte et la plus haute est le Pater 
noster ; car Dieu lui-meme l'etablit sp^cialement, et il commanda 
a ses Apdtres de la dire, et par eux il enjoignit la merae chose a 
tous ceux qui croient en lui. Aussi le Pater est-il et doit-il etre 
recite en sainte Eglise plus qu'aucune autre priere ; mais appre- 
nez, en verite, que vous pouvez etre tels qu'il arrive que vous de- 
mandiez plus de mal que de bien, sans le savoir, quand vous dites 
le Pater noster. Done, pour que vous sachiez ce que vous dites 
et ce que vous demandez a Dieu quand vous recitez le Pater 
noster, nous vous dirons ici et demontrerons en langue romane 
ce que la lettre a en elle-meme et ce qu'elle nous enseigne, etc. 

While the sermons of Saint Bernard, especially those in which he preaches 
the Crusades, are more stirring and of a higher order of pulpit eloquence, those 
of Maurice de Sully are the types of popular religious teaching of the same epoch. 
His method is always simple and effective, generally it is the gospel of the 
day, of which he first gives a version or a paraphrase in the popular idiom, and 
which he then uses as a text for further development and practical edification, 
always within reach of his humble hearers. It is thus that his sermons obtained, 
far and wide, a popularity which has seldom been surpassed. Copied and re- 
copied by the many theological students who then frequented the University of 
Paris, there is hardly a library of any note which does not possess some manu- 
script copy of the homilies of this prelate. Trinity College, Dublin, has a 
well-preserved copy ; Oxford has another, dating back as far as the year 1197 ; 
while a manuscript copy of five short sermons, translated into the Kentish 
dialect, together with their originals in French, is preserved in the Bodleyan 
Library, and this may even be found printed in " An Old English Miscellany," 
pages 26-36. As specimens of the style and method of this distinguished ora- 
tor, we give the following extracts, which will be readily understood without 
other explanation than a reference to the originals on which they are founded : 



DOMINICA XI POST PENTECOSTE. 

Saint Luke, xviii, v. 10-14. 

" Si lor dist ceste samblance : Doi home aloient al temple 
orer. Le uns estoit phariseus, le autres publicanus. Phariseu 
estoient apelez cil qui par religion estoient desevre del poeple et 
se faisoient juste ne mie por ce quil le fussent, mais il en faisoient 
le samblant. Publican estoient apelez cil qui par les reches et 
par les marchies demandoient les rentes a l'empereor, si faisoient 
pluisors mais a la gent, et por ce estoient forment pecheor. Le 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 6ll 

phariseu sarestoit et si disoit quant il oroit : Dieu toi rent graces 
que je ne sui mie tels comme cil robeor, ne torconnier, ne encore 
tels comme cil publicans est. Le publicans estoit loing et ne valt 
ses iex lever vers le ciel ains les tint vers terre et feroit son pis 
devant et si disoit : Deus esto propitius mihi peccatori ; Dieu, dist- 
il, pitoiables soies a moi pecheor. Et comme N. S. D. ot dite 
ceste samblance si dist : Amen dico vobis, voirement dije, dist-il, 
que cist cest publicans sen ala plus iustes que li phariseus." 

DOMINICA XIII POST PENTECOSTE. 

Saint Luke, x, v. 25-36. 

" Si li dist uns sages de loy : Maistres que feroi-je que puisse 
avoir la vie perdurable. Et N. S. D. li respondi : Tu ameras 
Dieu de tot ton cuer, de tote ta force, de tote ta pensee, et ton 
proisme com toi meisme ; ice si fai si auras la vie perdurable. 
Dont velt cil glorifier soi meisme, et si dist a N. S. : Et qui est 
mes proismes ? Et N. S. esgarda amont, et si dist : Uns horn 
descendi de Iherusalem en Jhericho et chai en la voie as larrons, 
et il le despoillierent et navrerent, et sen alerent et le laissierent 
demi mort. Ore avint que uns prestres passe par cele voie et si 
le vit et si le trespassa, et ne li dist noient. Au daerrain si vint 
uns horn de la cite qui est apeles Saumarie, en laquelle estoient 
paien ; et com il le vit si en ot pitie et si aproisma de lui et li 
oinst ses plaies et si mist oile et vin et le lia et le mist sor sa 
jument et Ten mena en une estable et si en prist garde. Et 
l'autre ior prist 11. d. et si les dona a lestablier si li dist : Tien ces 
11. d. pren garde de cest hom navre, et quant je revenrai si tu vels 
rien del mien jel te saudrai. Et quant N. S. ot dite ceste sam- 
blance, ensi li demanda lequels, dist-il, te samble qui fu plus pro- 
chain a celui qui chai as larrons." 

DOMINICA VI POST PENTECOSTE. 

Saint Luke, xvi, v. 19-25. 

" Nostres sires Dieu nos aparole en l'Evangile dhui par 1 ex- 
ample. Si dist qu'il fu 1 riches hom qui se vestoit molt riche- 
ment de chiers draps de soie et de porpre, et mangoit chascun 
ior molt richement. Si estoit 1 chaitis povres et mendis, 1 ma- 
lades qui estoit apeles ladres ; si gisoit devant la porte au riche 
hom et estoit molt covoiteux quil peut soi saoler des mies qui 
charroient de la table al rice hom, et li chien venoient a lui et li 
lechoient ses mains. Apres ce si morut cil riches hom et fu em- 
portis en ynfer, et li ladres morut si lenporterent li angele en 
paradis, el saim S. Abraham. Li rices hom qui estoit es tormens 
dynfer leva ses iex, si vit le ladre qui estoit el saim S. Abraham, 
si sescria et li dist : Pater Abraham, miserere met, Pere Abraham, 



6l2 APPENDIX. 

aies merci de moi; envoie mot le ladre qu'il moillette meniel en 
laigue et le degoutete sor ma langue, quia crucior in hac flamma, 
car je suis crucefiies ens tormens dynfer et en ceste flambe. 
Abraham li repondi et si li dist: Fiex, dist-il, ramembre toi que 
tu receus molt de bien en ta vie, et le ladres molt de mals." 



The Lord's Prayer 



From a Manuscript of the Eleventh Century. 

Sire Pere que es es Ciaux, 

sanctifiez soit li tuens Nons ; 

avigne li tuens Regnes ; 

soit faite ta volante, si comme ele est faite el Ciel, si soit ele 

faite en Terre. 
Nostre Pain de chascus Jor nos done hui; et pardone nos nos 

Meiifais, si come nos pardonons a cos qui meffait nos ont ; 
Sire ne soffre que nos soions tempte par mauvesse Temptacion, 
mes sire deliure nos de Mai. 

Compare the above with the Lord's Prayer from the psalter of Will- 
iam the Conqueror, page 270. 



Regnault de Coucy, 

More generally known under the name of Chdtelain de Coucy, is one of the 
celebrated men of the Middle Ages, with whose life we are but little acquainted. 
All that we know about him is, that in 1190 he accompanied Richard Coeur-de- 
Lion to Palestine, where he was killed in 1192, in an encounter with the Sara- 
cens, when they endeavored to carry away the English king. He has left us 
twenty-four songs, which are nearly all models of simplicity, grace, and good 
taste. One of them commences with the following stanza : 

Bele dame me prie de chanter, 
si est bien drois que je face chancon ; 
je ne m'en sai ne m'en puis destorner, 
car n'ai povoir de moi, se par li non. 
Ele a mon cuer, que ja n'en quier oster, 
et sai de voir qu'il n'i trait se mal non. 
Or le doinst Dex a droit port ariver : 
car il s'est mis en mer sans aviron. 

TRANSLATION. 

Belle dame me prie de chanter ; il est bien juste que je fasse 
une chanson : je ne sais ni ne puis m'en tirer autrement ; car je 
n'ai pouvoir sur moi-meme que par cette dame. Elle a mon 
cceur, et je ne cherche pas a le lui 6ter, sachant, de vrai, qu'il ne 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 613 

peut que lui arriver du mal ; aussi, que Dieu lui donne d'arriver 
a bon port, car il s'est mis en mer sans aviron. 



JOFFROI DE VlLLE-HARDOUIN. 

Joffroi de Ville-Hardouin was born about the year 1167. He was present 
at the taking of Constantinople in 1204. The Emperor Baudouin gave him the 
post of marshal of Romania. He died in Thessalia about the year 1213. The 
only work he produced is a history of the conquest of Constantinople, which 
comprises a space of nine years, from 1198 to 1207. His work does not possess 
the fascination and simplicity of Joinville (see page 619), but Ville-Hardouin 
writes with vigorous eloquence, and relates many interesting facts which give 
to the reader a better idea of chivalry and feudalism at their best than any 
other work. Speaking of the arrival of the Crusaders before Constantinople, 
he says : 

Or poez savoir que mult esgarderent Constantinople cil qui 
onques mais ne l'avoient veue ; que il ne povient mie cuidier que 
si riche vile peust estre en tot le mond. Cum il virent ces halz 
murs, et ces riches tours dont ere close tot entor a la ronde, et 
ces riches palais, et ces haltes yglises dont il i avait tant que nuls 
ne poist croire se il ne le veist a Toil, et le lone et le le de la vile 
que de totes les autres ere souveraine. Et sachiez que il n'i ot si 
hardi, cui le cuer ne fremist ; et ce ne fut mie merveille, que on- 
ques si grant affaires ne fu empris de tant de gent puis que li 
monz fu estore. 

TRANSLATION. 

Or vous pouvez penser qu'ils regarderent beaucoup Constanti- 
nople, ceux qui ne l'avaient jamais vue ; car ils ne pouvaient croire 
que dans tout le monde il se trouvat une vilie aussi riche. Comme 
ils virent ces hauts murs, et ces riches tours dont la ville £tait 
entouree, et ces riches palais, et ces hautes eglises dont il y avait 
tant que nul ne pourrait le croire s'il ne l'eut vu de ses yeux, et 
le long et le large de la ville qui de toutes les autres £tait souve- 
raine. Et sachez qu'il n'y eut de si hardi a qui le cocur ne bat- 
tit ; et ce ne fut point merveille, car jamais de si grandes affaires 
ne furent enterprises par tant de gens, depuis le commencement 
du monde. 



Thibaut IV, King of Navarre and Count of Champagne. 

Thibaut IV, son of Thibaut III, Count of Champagne and Brie, was born in 
1201. In 1234 he succeeded his maternal uncle, Sanche-le-Fort, King of Na- 
varre, and shortly after joined the Crusaders. On his return he applied him- 
self to the government of his states, and made himself beloved by his people. 
He cultivated literature, and, having a love for poetry, covered with honors 
those who distinguished themselves in this art. He died at Pampeluna, in 
June, 1253. Thibaut was the first who mingled masculine and feminine rhymes, 



614 APPENDIX. 

and as such created an era in trie history of French poetry. There is much 
grace and naivete" in his compositions. The following stanzas are from a song 
written to excite the Crusaders : 

ORIGINAL TEXT. 

Signor, saciez, ki or ne s'en ira 

en cele terre, u Diex fu mors et vis, 

et ki la crois d'outre mer ne prendra, 

a paines mais ira en paradis. 

Ki a en soi pitie et ramembrance 

au haut seignor, doit querre sa venjance, 

et deUivrer sa terre et son pais. 

Diex se laissa por nos en crois pener, 
et nous dira au jour ou tuit venront : 
" Vos, qui ma crois m'aidates a porter, 
vos en irez la, ou li angele sont ; 
la me verrez, et ma mere Marie. 
Et vos, par qui je n'oi onques aie, 
descendez tuit en enfer le parfont." 

Douce dame, roine coron^e, 
proiez por nos, virge bien eur6e, 
et puis apres ne nos puit mescheoir. 

TRANSLATION. 

Seigneur, sachez que celui qui ne s'en ira en cette terre ou 
Dieu mourut et vecut, et ne prendra pas la croix d'outre-mer, 
aura grande peine a gagner le paradis. Qui en soi a pitie et sou- 
venir du Haut Seigneur doit chercher a le venger, et a delivrer 
sa terre et son pays. 

Dieu se laissa martyriser en croix pour nous, et il nous dira 
au jour oil tous viendront devant lui : " Vous qui m'aidates a 
porter ma croix, allez ou sont les anges : la vous me verrez avec 
ma mere Marie. Et vous par qui je n'eus jamais aucun aide, de- 
scendez tous en profond enfer." 

Douce dame, reine couronnde, priez pour nous, Vierge bien- 
heureuse, et qu'apres la mort il ne nous arrive point de mal. 



GUILLAUME DE LORRIS. 

This poet flourished in the middle of the thirteenth century, and died about 
the year 1262. It was he who first undertook the " Roman de la Rose" of 
which, however, he only composed the first part. He was endowed with a brilliant 
and fertile imagination, his versification is always easy, and his style natural. 
His poems abound in rich descriptions, pictures of manners and maxims of 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 615 

morality. Clement Marot called him " the French Ennius." The following ex- 
tract, portraying " Time," is a fair specimen of the author's style : 

Li tens s'en va nuit et jor 
sans repos prendre et sans s£jor, 
et de nous se part et emble 
si celeement, qu'il nous semble 
qu'il s'arreste ades en ung point, 
et il ne s'i arreste point ; 
Ains ne fine de trespasser, 
que nus ne puet neis penser 
quex tens ce est qui est presens 
Sel' demandes as clers lisans, 
aincois que Ten l'eust pense, 
seroit-il ja le tens passe. 

TRANSLATION. 

Le temps marche nuit et jour, sans prendre de repos et sans 
s£jour ; il se separe de nous et nous quitte si doucement qu'il ■ 
nous semble qu'il s'arrete en un point, tandis qu'il ne s'y arrete 
pas ; il ne cesse, au contraire, de passer outre, tellement que per- 
sonne ne peut dire quel est le temps present. Si vous le d'emandez 
aux clercs qui savent lire, avant que ceux-ci n'aient r£pondu, ce 
temps sera deja le temps passe. 



Jehan de Meung. 

Jehan de Meung, who continued the work of Lorris, was born in 1260, and 
died in 1320. Though possessed of less warmth and imagination, he was not 
the less a poet of great merit, and passed for one of the most learned men of his 
time. The numerous beauties of the " Roman de la Rose " excited his admira- 
tion, and induced him to continue the work. He succeeded so well that this 
poem, so renowned in former ages, is still relished by those who understand its 
antiquated language. " This poem," says Warton, " is esteemed by the French 
the most valuable piece of their old poetry. It is far beyond the rude efforts of 
all their preceding romancers ; and they have nothing equal to it before the 
reign of Francis I, who died in the year 1547. But there is a considerable dif- 
ference in the merit of the two authors. William of Lorris, who wrote not one 
quarter of the poem, is remarkable for his elegance and luxuriance of descrip- 
tion, and is a beautiful painter of allegorical personages. John of Meung 
is a writer of another cast. He possesses but little of his predecessor's invent- 
ive and poetical vein ; and in that respect he was not properly qualified to 
finish a poem begun by William of Lorris. But he has strong satire and great 
liveliness. He was one of the wits of the court of Charles le Bel. The diffi- 
culties and dangers of a lover in pursuing and obtaining the object of his desires 
are the literal argument of this poem. This design is couched under the argu- 
ment of a rose, which our lover, after frequent obstacles, gathers in a delicious 
garden. He traverses vast ditches, scales lofty walls, and forces the gates of 
adamantine- and almost impregnable castles. These enchanted fortresses are 
all inhabited by various divinities ; some of which assist, and some oppose, the 
lover's progress." The entire poem consists of no fewer than 22,734 verses, of 



6l6 APPENDIX. 

which only 4,149 are the composition of William of Lorris. All this portion 
has been translated by Chaucer, and also about half of the 18,588 lines written 
by De Meung ; his version comprehends 13,105 lines of the French poem. 
These, however, he has managed to comprehend in 7,701 (Warton says 7,699) 
English verses : this is effected by a great compression and curtailment of De 
Meung's part ; for, while the 4,149 French verses of De Lorris are fully and 
faithfully rendered in 4,432 English verses, the 8,956 that follow by De Meung 
are reduced in the translation to 3,269. The following extract, in which the 
author describes an ideal beauty, will give an idea of the general style of his 
work : 

Icele dame ot nom Biaut6s. 

El ne fu obscure, ne brune, 

ains fu clere comme la lune, 

envers qui les autres estoiles 

ressemblent petites chandoiles. 

Tendre ot la char comme rousee, 

simple fu cum une espoused, 

et blanche comme nor de lis. 

Si ot le vis cler et alis, 

et fu greslete et alignie. 

Ne fu fardee ne guignie, 

car el n'avoit mie mestier 

de soi tifer ne d'afetier. 

Les cheveus ot blons et si Ions 

qu'il li batoient as talons ; 

Nez ot bien fait, et yelx et bouche. 

Moult grant doucor au cuer me touche, 

si m'aist Diex, quant il me membre 

de la facon de chascun membre, 

qu'il n'ot si bele fame ou monde. 

Briement el fu jonete et blonde, 

sade, plaisant, aperte et cointe, 

grassete et gresle, gente et jointe. 

TRANSLATION. 

Cette dame s'appelait Beaute\ Elle n'dtait ni noire ni brune, 
mais claire comme la lune, a l'egard de laquelle les autres £toiles 
semblent de petites lumieres. Elle eut la chair tendre comme de 
la rosee ; elle fut simple comme une fiancee et blanche comme 
une fleur de lys. Elle eut le visage clair et joyeux ; elle fut frele 
et reguliere. Elle n'avait ni fard ni autres appas trompeurs, car 
elle n'avait pas besoin de s'attifer ni de s'arranger. Ses cheveux 
£taient blonds et si longs qu'ils lui tombaient jusqu'aux talons. 
Son nez etait bien fait, ainsi que ses yeux et sa bouche. II me 
vient une grande joie au cceur quand, avec l'aide de Dieu, je 
me rappelle ses traits en detail. II n'y eut jamais plus belle 
femme au monde. En un mot, elle etait jeunette et blonde, 
gracieuse, agreable, ouverte et polie, grasse et grele, jolie et bien 
mise. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 617 

Translation of the Stabat Mater. 

From the first half of the Thirteenth Century. 

Deles la croix moult doloreuse 
estoit la mere glorieuse, 
plourant quant son doulx filz pandoit ; 
le glague de sa mort criieuse 
son ame digne et precieuse 
a grant doleur par my passoit. 

O benoiste vierge Marie, 
comment tu fus triste et marie, 
quant tu vei'z ton cher enffant, 
de duels et de pleurs si remplie 
et de grant torment amortie, 
pendre en la croiz villainement. 

Qui est celuy, tres dousce mere, 
qui te veist ainsi amere 
et en si doloreux torment, 
qui n'eust pitie de la misere 
du filz et de toy, vierge mere, 
et ne plorast amerement? 

En ta presence, vierge pure, 
tu veois a si grant laidure 
mourir ton doulx filz debonnaire 
pour le peche et forfaicture 
de toute humaine creature : 
ce te fist rage d 'amour faire. 

O mere, fontaine d'amour, 
fay moy sentir ta grant dolour, 
et qu'avec toy puisse plorer ; 
fay que mon cuer par grant ardour 
puisse Jesus son doulx seignour 
servir, aymer et honorer. 

O saincte mere vierge et gente, 
fay que mon cueur endure sente 
les playes que ton filz souffrit 
en la crois davant toy dolente 
pour mon ame vile et piiante 
et si honteusement mourit. 

ORIGINAL TEXT. 

Stabat Mater dolorosa, 
Juxta crucem lacrymosa, 
Dum pendebat Filius. 
41 



618 APPENDIX. 

Cujus animam gementem, 

Contristatam et dolentem, 

Pertransivit gladius. 

O quam tristis et afflicta, 
Fuit ilia benedicta, 
Mater Unigeniti ! 

Quae moerebat et dolebat, 
Pia Mater dum videbat 
Nati poenas inclyti. 

Quis est homo qui non fleret, 
Matrem Christi si videret 
In tanto supplicio ? 

Quis non posset contristari, 
Christi Matrem contemplari 
Dolentem cum Fiiio ? 

Pro peccatis suae gentis, 
Vidit Jesum in tormentis 
Et flagellis subditum. 

Vidit suum dulcem natum, 
Moriendo desolatum, 
Dum emisit spirtum. 

Eia Mater, fons amoris, 
Me sentire vim doloris 
Fac ut tecum lugeam. 

Fac ut ardeat cor meum 
In amando Christum Deum, 
Ut sibi complaceam. 

Sancta Mater istud agas 
Crucifixi fige plagas 
Cordi meo valide. 

Tui nati vulnerati, 
Tarn dignati pro me pati, 
Pcenas mecum divide. 

Fac me tecum pie flere 
Crucifixo condolere 
Donee ego vixero. 

Juxta crucem tecum stare, 
Et me tibi sociare 
In planctu desidero. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 619 
Jehan de Joinville. 

Jehan, sire de Joinville was born in 1223, and died in 1317. He passed his 
youth at the elegant court of Thibault, King of Navarre, where he early acquired 
the habits of fine speaking and narrating with that charming simplicity which 
particularly distinguish his style. In 1248 he set out for the holy land with 
King Louis IX, to whom he was devotedly attached, and whose life he after- 
ward wrote. With an almost saintly piety, an affectionate and devoted charac- 
ter, a mind as candid and as pure as that of a child, Joinville is one of the 
writers of the Middle Ages whom we always read with renewed pleasure. He 
surprises us much by the solidity of his good sense, as he charms by his touch- 
ing language, when he relates the beautiful actions of his royal friend whose 
reputation for holiness, justice, and virtue he establishes with a rare eloquence, 
by means of which he, more than any other author, has contributed to bestow 
on this prince the surname of saint, by which he is generally distinguished in 
French history. He thus describes the ready and unostentatious mode of the 
king's dispatching business : 

Maintes foiz avint que en est6, il aloit seoir au boiz de Vin- 
ciennes apres sa messe, et se acostoioit a un chesne et nous fesoit 
seoir entour li ; et tous ceulz qui avoient a faire venoient parler 
a li ; sans destourbier de huissier ne d 'autre. Et lors il leur de- 
mandoit de sa bouche : A yl ci nullui qui ait partie ? Et cil se 
levoient qui partie avoient ; et lors il disoit : Taisiez vous tous, 
et on vous deliverra Tun apres l'autre. Et lors il appeloit mon- 
seigneur Pierre de Fontainnes et monseigneur Geoffroy de Vil- 
lette, et disoit a Tun d'eulz : Delivrez moi ceste partie. Et quant 
il veoit aucune chose a amender en la parole de ceulz qui par- 
loient pour autrui, il meisme l'amendoit de sa bouche. Je le vi 
aucune fois en est6, que pour delivrer sa gent, il venoit ou jardin 
de Paris, une cote de chamelot vestue, un seurcot de tyreteinne 
sanz manches, un mentel de cendal noir entour son col, moult 
bien pigne et sanz coife, et un chapel de paon blanc sur sa teste, 
et fesoit estendre tapis pour nous seoir entour li. Et tout le 
peuple qui avoit a faire par devant li, estoit entour li en estant, et 
lors il les fesoit delivrer, en la maniere que je vous ai dit devant 
du bois de Vinciennes. 

TRANSLATION. 

Mainte fois il advint qu'en ete, il allait s'asseoir au bois de 
Vincennes apres la messe, et s'appuyait a un chene et nous faisait 
asseoir autour de lui, et tous ceux qui avaient affaire venaient lui 
parler, sans empechement d'huissier ni d'autres. Alors, il leur 
demandait de sa bouche : "Y a-t-il quelqu'un qui ait partie? " 
Et ceux qui avaient partie se levaient, et il leur disait : Taisez- 
vous tous, et on vous exp^diera l'un apres l'autre." Et alors il 
appelait monseigneur Pierre de Fontaines et monseigneur Geoffroy 
de Villette, et disait a l'un d'eux : " Expediez moi cette partie." 
Et quand il voyait quelque chose a amender dans le discours de 
ceux qui parlaient pour autrui, lui-meme il l'amendait de sa 
bouche. 



620 APPENDIX. 

Je le vis quelquefois, en ete, venir pour expedier ses gens au 
jardin de Paris, vetu d'une cotte de camelot, d'un surtout de tire- 
taine sans manche, d'un manteau de taffas noir, autour du col, 
bien peigne et sans coiffe, et un chapel de paon blanc sur la tete : 
il faisait etendre un tapis pour nous faire asseoir autour de lui, et 
tous ceux qui avaient affaire a lui se tenaient debout devant 
lui, et alors il les faisait expedier de la maniere que je vous ai 
dit qu'il faisait au bois de Vincennes. 



Jehan Froissart. 

Jehan Froissart was born at Valenciennes about the year 1338. Destined 
at first for the clergy, he was educated accordingly ; but his tastes withdrew him 
from the priesthood. He early felt a desire to learn, and knew but one way 
to satisfy it, which was to travel, so a great part of his life was spent on horse- 
back. He first went to Spain, where he followed the Black Prince ; then to 
Italy in company with the Duke of Clarence ; afterward he remained a long 
time with Richard II, who received him as his father's old friend. After the 
frightful catastrophe which precipitated the English monarch from his throne, 
Froissart was so much afflicted at so horrible a scene that he returned to Flan- 
ders, where it is believed he died in 1401. His Chronicle is certainly the truest 
and most lively picture that any writer has bequeathed to us of the spirit of a 
particular era ; it shows " the very age and body of the time, its form and 
pressure." Chivalry was the object of his most profound admiration. Brilliant 
tournaments, and high deeds of arms he celebrates with transport ; but above 
all he excels in portraying the disorders, ravages, and cruelties which rendered 
the state of society of this epoch a curse to the middle and lower classes. 
Candor, integrity, and vivacity form the principal traits of this author, and 
give an inestimable value to his writings. A remarkably pure translation of 
Froissart's Chronicles was made by Lord Berners, and published in 1523. The 
language of his time was exceedingly well suited to render the chivalrous pages 
of Froissart with picturesque effect, and his translation from this point of view 
is preferable to the modern one by Mr. Johnes. Mr. Marsh says : " This trans- 
lation is doubtless the best English prose style which had yet appeared, and, as 
a specimen of picturesque narrative, it is excelled by no production of later 
periods." The following extract describes the touching scene of the burghers 
of Calais bringing the keys of the city to King Edward III : 

Comment les six bourgeois se partirent de Palais, tous nuds en leurs 
chemises, la fiart 1 au col, et les clefs de la ville en leurs mains j 
et comment la roine d'Angleterre leur sauva les vies. 

. . . . Le roy £toit a cette heure en sa chambre, a grand' 
compagnie de comtes, de barons et de chevaliers. Si 2 entendit 
que ceux 3 de Calais venoient en l'arroy 4 qu'il avoit devise et 
ordonne ; et se mit hors, et s'en vint en la place devant son hotel, 
et tous ces seigneurs apres lui, et encore grand' foison qui y sur- 
vinrent pour voir ceux de Calais, ni comment lis fineroient ; et 
memement la roine d'Angleterre, qui moult etoit enceinte, suivit 
le roy son seigneur. Si vint messire Gautier de Mauny et les 
bourgeois de-lez 5 lui qui le suivoient, et descendit en la place, et 
puis s'envint devers le roy et lui dit: "Sire, vecy 6 la representa- 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 62 1 

tion de la ville de Calais a votre ordonnance." Le roy se tint 
tout coi et les regarda moult fellement, 7 car moult heoit 8 les 
habitans de Calais, pour les grands dommages et contraires que 
au temps passe sur mer lui avoient faits. Ces six bourgeois se 
mirent tantot 9 a genoux pardevant le roy, et dirent ainsi en joig- 
nant leurs mains: " Gentil sire et gentil roy, veez 10 -nous cy six, 
qui avous ete d'anciennete bourgeois de Calais et grands mar- 
chands : si 11 vous apportons les clefs de la ville et du chatel de 
Calais et les vous rendons a. votre plaisir, et nous mettons en tel 
point que vous nous veez, en votre pure volonte, pour sauver le 
demeurant 12 du peuple de Calais, qui a souffert moult de grie- 
vetes. Si veuillez avoir de nous pitie et mercy par votre tres 
haute noblesse." Certes il n'y eut adonc en la place seigneur, 
chevalier, ni vaillant homme, qui se put abstenir de pleurer de 
droite pitie, ni qui put de grand' piece parler. Et vraiment ce 
n'etoit pas merveille ; car c'est grand'-pitie de voir hommes de- 
cheoir et estre en tel estat et danger. Le roy les regarda tres 
ireusement, 13 car il avait le cceur si dur et si 6pris de grand cour- 
roux qu'il ne put parler. Et quand il parla, il commanda qu'on 
leur coupat tantdt les tetes. Pour les barons et les chevaliers 
qui la etoient, en pleurant prioient si acertes 14 que faire pouvoit 
au roy qu'il en voulut avoir pitie et mercy; mais il n'y vouloit 
entendre. Adonc parla messire de Mauny et dit : " Ha ! gentil 
sire, veuillez refrener votre courage : vous avez le nom et la re- 
nommee de souveraine gentillesse et noblesse ; or ne veuillez done 
faire chose par quoi elle soit amenrie, 15 ni que on puisse parler sur 
vous en nulle vilenie. Si vous n'avez pitie" de ces gens, toutes 
autres gens diront que ce sera grand' cruant6, si vous etes si dur 
que vous fassiez mourir ces honnestes bourgeois, qui de leur 
propre volente se sont mis en votre mercy pour les autres sauver." 
A ce point gringna le roy les dents 16 et dit : " Messire Gautier, 
souffrez vous ; 17 il n'en sera autrement, mais on fasse venir le 
coupe-teste. 18 Ceux de Calais ont fait mourir tant de mes hommes, 
que il convient ceux-cy mourir aussi." 

Adonc fit la noble roine d'Angleterre grand' humility, qui 
etoit durement enceinte, et pleuroit si tendrement de pitie que 
elle ne se pouvoit soutenir. Si se jeta a genoux pardevant le 
roy son seigneur et dit ainsi : " Ha ! gentil sire, depuis que je 
repassai la mer en grand peril, si comme vous savez, ne vous ai 
rein requis ni demande ; or 3 vous prie-je humblement et requiers 
en propre don, que pour le fils Sainte Marie, et pour l'amour de 
moi vous veuillez avoir de ces six hommes mercy. Le roy at- 
tendit un petit 20 a parler, et regarda la bonne dame sa femme, 
qui pleuroit a genoux moult tendrement ; si lui amollia le cceur, 
car envis, 21 l'eut courouc^e au point oil elle £toit ; si dit : " Ha ! 
dame, j'aimasse trop mieux que vous fussiez autre part que cy. 
Vous me priez si acertes que je ne le vous ose escondire; 22 et 
combien que je le fasse envis, tenez, je vous les donne ; si en 



622 APPENDIX. 

faites votre plaisir." La bonne dame dit : " Monseigneur, tres 
grands mercis " ! Lors se leva la roine et fit lever les six bour- 
geois et leur 6ter les chevestres 23 d'entour leur cou, et les emmena 
avec li 24 en sa chambre, et les fit revetir et donner a, diner tout 
aise, et puis donna a chacun six nobles, et les fit conduire hors 
de l'ost^ 5 a sauvete ; et s'en allerent habiter et demeurer en plu- 
sieurs villes de Picardie. 



I, La corde dont en etranglait les criminels. 2, il. 3, les gens. 4, etat. 
5, apres. 6, voici. 7, durement. 8, haissait. 9, tout de suite. 10, voyez, 
11, nous. 12, reste. 13, en colere. 14, serieusement. 15, amoindrie, diminuee. 
16, grin$a des dents. 17, permettez. 18, bourreau. 19, maintenant, anjourd'hui. 
20, un peu. 21, malgre soi. 22, refuser. 23, cordes. 24, elle. 25, armee. 



Charles d'Orleans. 

Charles d'Orleans, father of Louis XII, and uncle of Francis I, King of 
France, was born at Paris in 1391. From childhood he applied himself to let- 
ters, whence he derived great consolation afterward amid the misfortunes 
which assailed his long and stormy life. Vanquished twice in the space of a 
few years, he was taken prisoner at the battle of Agincourt, and carried to Eng- 
land, where he remained twenty-five years. In the year 1440, Philippe-le-Bon, 
Duke of Burgundy, brought him back to France, where lie died the 8th of 
January, 1467. His compositions display that elegance of tone and aristocratic 
diction which seem to belong only to very cultivated eras. His style is always 
fine and graceful ; but he is a poet in heart when he speaks of France and of 
the numerous friends whom he left there. 

SUR LE BRUIT QU'ON AVAIT REPANDU DE SA MORT. 

Nouvelles ont couru en France 
par maints lieux que j'estoye mort, 
dont avoient peu desplaisance 
aucuns qui me hayent a tort. 
Aultres en ont eu disconfort, 
qui m'ayment de loyal vouloir, 
comme mes bons et vrays amis. 
Si fais a toutes gens scavoir 
qu'encore est vive la souris. 

Je n'ay eu ne mal, ne grevance, 

Dieu mercy ! mais suis sain et fort : 

et passe temps en esperance 

que paix, qui trop longuement dort, 

s'esveillera et par accort, 

a tous fera Hesse avoir. 

Pour ce, de Dieu soient maudis 

ceux qui sont dolents de veoir, 

qu'encore est vive la souris. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 623 

Jeunesse sur moy a puissance, 
mais veillesse fait son effort 
de m'avoir en sa gouvernance. 
A present faillira son sort ? 
Je suis assez loing de son port, 
de ploures vueil garder mon hoir. 
Loue soit Dieu de paradis 
qui m'a donne force et povoir 
qu'encore est vive la souris. 

Nul ne porte pour moy le noir. 
On vent meillieur marchie drap gris. 
Or tiengne chascun pour tout voir 
qu'encore est vive la souris. 



Olivier Basselin, 

A mighty drinker and a good singer; was born in 1350, in the district of 
Vire, near Vaux, where he had a fulling-mill. Tradition points to his wife as 
the working partner of the firm, which suffered from his inattention to business 
to such an extent as finally to cause his relations to interfere and to sequestrate, 
alienate, or put in safe keeping the mill, if not the person of Basselin himself. 
Though we have no detailed particulars about his life, we gather from certain 
of his songs some which relate to his habits and preferences. Thus we learn 
that he preferred wine of Orleans to any other when he could get it ; that he 
drank cider when he could not get wine, and perry when he could not get cider. 
His songs, which were especially drinking songs, were called vaux-de-vire, prob- 
ably because they were first sung in or about his native place. These songs, 
sixty-two of which are still extant, were the origin of the French vaudeville, a 
sort of play whose dialogue is intermingled with light or comic songs. Our 
poet, as we have said, was fond of his cup, and his countenance showed it. One 
day, some of his friends having remarked on the color of his nose, he wrote the 
following lines : 

Beau nez dont les rubis ont couste mainte pipe 

de vin blanc et clairet, 
et duquel la couleur richement participe 

du rouge et violet ; 

Gros nez ! qui te regarde a, travers un grand verre 

te juge encore plus beau : 
tu ne ressemble point au nez de quelque here 

qui ne boit que de l'eau. 

Un coq d'Inde sa gorge a toy semblable porte. 

Combien de riches gens 
n'ont pas si riche nez ! Pour te peindre en la sorte, 

il faut beaucoup de temps. 

Le verre est le pinceau duquel on t'enlumine ; 
Le vin est la couleur 



624 APPENDIX. 

dont on t'a peint ainsi plus rouge qu'une guisne 
en beuvant du meilleur. 

On dit qu'il nuit aux yeux : mais seront ils les maistres ? 

Le vin est guairison 
de mes maux ; j'aime mieux perdre les deux fenestres 

que toute la maison. 



Francois Villon. 

Francois Corbueil, called Villon, was born at Paris in the year 143 1. Little 
is known of the circumstances of his life from his contemporaries. He himself 
relates that, born of poor parents, and associating with young men of dissolute 
habits, he soon became a knave and robber, and at the age of twenty-five had 
been imprisoned several times. At length an important robbery caused him, 
with several others, to be condemned to be hanged. It was then that he com- 
posed the following ballad on the approaching exposition of their bodies on the 
gallows of Montfaucon. However, by the intercession of Louis XI, who ap- 
preciated his talent, the parliament commuted his sentence of death to that of 
perpetual banishment, when he crossed over to England, where, according to 
Rabelais, he also knew how to gain the good graces of Edward IV. The verses 
of Villon are generally well turned, his rhyme is rich, and his works are full of 
wit. If at a first reading he is more difficult to comprehend than Charles of 
Orleans, it is because he is more true, more local, and more French. The lan- 
guage of Charles of Orleans is the idiom used among the higher classes in 
France, and at the court of Henry V of England, where the courtiers affected to 
speak nothing but French. Villon, on the contrary, wrote the French of the 
people of Paris, and took his language from the places where his ideas origi- 
nated. He is the first French poet who has emancipated himself from chivalric 
gallantry, metaphysical abstractions, insipid allegories, and the confused and 
unintelligible learning of his predecessors, and has made national poetry come 
from its true source, the people. 

La pluye nous a debuez et lavez, 

et le soleil dessechez et noirciz, 

pies, corbeaux, nous ont les yeux cavez, 

et an-ache* la barbe et les sourcilz. 

Jamais nul temps nous ne sommes rassiz, 

puis 9a, puis la, comme le vent varie, 

a son plaisir sans cesse nous charie, 

plus becquetez d'oyseaulx que des a couldre. 

Hommes, ici n'usez de mocquerie, 

mais priez Dieu que tous nous veuille absouldre. 

When he arose above the trivial, his language often reached the sublime. 
The following lines remind us of Shakespeare's scene of the grave-diggers : 

Quand je considere ces tetes 

entassees en ces charniers, 

tous furent maitres des requetes, 

ou tous de la chambre aux deniers, 

ou tous furent porte-paniers (porte-faix). 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 62$ 

autant puis l'un que l'autre dire : 
car d'eveques ou lanterniers 
je n'y connais rien a redire. 

Et icelles qui s'inclinaient 
une contre autres en leurs vies ; 
desquelles les unes regnaient, 
des autres craintes et servies ; 
la les vois, toutes assouvies 
ensemble en un tas pele-mele. 
seigneuries leur sont ravies : 
clerc ni maitre ne s'y appelle. 



Philippe de Comines. 

Philippe de Comines was born in 1445, of one of the most illustrious fami- 
lies in Flanders, and died the 16th of August, 1509. It is extremely difficult to 
class the chroniclers of different centuries by their order of merit. However, 
general opinion places Comines at the head of the French authors, previous to 
Montaigne, his great admirer. His style is elegant and nervous, equally free 
from harshness and affectation. Comines was a skillful observer of human 
nature, which enabled him to draw his characters with truth and accuracy. He 
has written with a rare talent the history of the memorable reign of Louis XI ; 
unfortunately the mind of the author was too much in accordance with that of 
the monarch, the most despotic that has ever reigned, not to affect his impar- 
tiality as a historian. 

Comment le Roy Loys XI feist f aire plusieurs cages de fer doni en 
Pvne fust mis Vautheur de ce liure Vespace de huit mois. 

II est vrai qu'il auoit fait de rigoureuses prisons, comme cages 
de fer et d'autres de bois, couuertes da pates de fer par le dehors 
et par le dedans, auec terribles fermures, de huit pieds de large, 
de la hauteur d'vn homme, et un pied plus. Le premier qui les 
deuisa fust l'euesque de Verdun, qui, en la premiere qui fust 
faite, fust mis incontinent, et y a couche quatorze ans. Plusieurs 
depuis l'ont maudit, et moy aussi qui en ay taste soubs le Roy de 
present huit mois. Autres fois auoit fait faire a des Allemans, 
des fers trespesans et terribles pour mettre aux pieds. Et y res- 
toit vn anneau pour mettre au pied fort mal aise a ouurir, comme 
a vn carquant, la chaine grosse et pesante : et vne grosse boulle 
de fer au bout beaucoup plus pesante que n'estoit de raison, et 
les appeloit on les fillettes du Roy. 



Clement Marot. 

Clement Marot, son of Jean Marot, a poet of some note himself, was born 
at Cahors, in 1497, and came very young to Paris. His father destined him for 
the magistracy, but Marot, who already felt in himself the genius of poetry, very 



626 APPENDIX, 

soon abandoned the dry study of law, and found himself a situation in the 
household of Marguerite de Valois, sister of Francis I. At the age of seventeen 
he distinguished himself by some charming compositions, which gained him the 
favor of this prince. Without ceasing to be as popular as Villon, Marot rather 
succeeds Thibault and Charles of Orleans, as he gained from the delicate and 
witty conversations of men of taste and noble ladies a certain elegance and a 
peculiar euphony, only to be acquired in the company of well-bred women, and 
of which advantage Villon had been utterly deprived. In other respects Marot 
entirely resembles the latter. Poets of the same family, chance left the elder in 
the mire of the streets, and raised the younger to the service of the court. 
Hence the difference in the tone of their writings. Each, however, remained true 
to his origin, natural, and frank, and kept free from all the sentimental affecta- 
tion of the old school. Marot has not so much changed as improved the rules 
of French poetry, by giving it a more easy turn, and especially by infusing more 
grace, spirit, and amiable satire through his verses than had been done before. 
His compositions abound in wit and good humor. Once, when he wanted to 
borrow money from the king, he addressed him the following fyttre : 

On dit bien vray, la mauvaise fortune 

ne vient jamais qu'elle n'en apporte une 

ou deux ou trois avecques elle, sire ; 

Votre coeur noble en seauroit bien que dire : 

Et moy, chetif, qui ne suis roy, ni rien, 

l'ay eprouve" ; et vous conteray bien, 

si vous voulez, comment vint la besogne. 

J'avois un jour un valet de Gascogne, 
gourmand, ivrogne, et assure menteur, 
pipeur, 1 larron, jureur, blasphemateur, 
sentant la hart de cent pas a la ronde, 
au demeurant le meilleur fils du monde. 



Ce venerable Hot 2 fut averti 

de quelque argent que m'aviez departi, 

et que ma bourse avoit grosse apostume. 

Si se leva plutot que de coutume, 

et me va prendre en tapinois ycelle ; 

puis la vous met tres-bien sous son esselle, 

argent et tout (cela ce doit entendre) ; 

et ne crois point que ce fut pour la rendre, 

car oncques puis n'en ay ouy parler. 

Bref, le vilain ne s'en voulut aller 
pour si petit, mais encore il me happe 
save, 3 bonnets, chausses, pourpoint et cappe ; 
de mes habits, en effet, il pilla 
-tous les plus beaux ; et puis s'en habilla 
si justement, qu'a. le voir ainsi estre, 
vous l'eussiez pris, en plein jour, pour son maistre. 
Finalement, de ma cbambre il s'en va 
droit a l'etable, ou deux chevaux trouva ; 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 627 

laisse le pire, et sur le meilleur monte, 
pique et s'en va. Pour abreger le conte, 
soyez certain qu'au partir dudit lieu 
n'oublia rien, fors a, me dire adieu. 

Ainsi s'en va, chatouilleux de la gorge, 4 
ledit valet, monte comme un saint George ; 
et vous laissa monsieur dormir son saoul, 
qui au reveil n'eust scu finer 5 d'un soul. 
Ce monsieur-la, sire, c'etoit moi-meme, 
qui, sans mentir, fus au matin bien blesme, 
quand je me vis sans honneste vesture, 
et fort fache de perdre ma monture : 
mais de l'argent que vous m'aviez donne, 
je ne fus point de le perdre etonne , 
car votre argent tres-debonnaire prince, 
sans point de faute, est sujet a la pince. 6 

Bientost apres cette fortune-la, 
une autre pire encore se mesla 
de m'assaillir, et chacun jour m'assaut, 
me menacant de me donner le saut, 
et de ce saut m'envoyer a. l'envers, 
rimer sous terre, et y faire des vers. 

C'est une longue et lourde maladye 
de trois bons mois, qui m'a toute etourdye 
la pauvre teste, et ne veut terminer ; 
ains me contraint d'apprendre a cheminer, 
tant foible suis. Bref, a ce triste corps, 
dont je vous parle, il n'est demeure, fors 
le pauvre esprit, qui lamente et soupire, 
et en pleurant tasche a vous faire rire. 

Voila comment, depuis neuf mois en ea 

je suis traicte. Or ce que me laissa 

mon larronneau, long-temps a l'ay vendu ; 

et en sirops et juleps despendu : 

Ce neantmoins, ce que je vous en mande, 

n'est pour vous faire ou requeste ou demande : 

Je ne veux point tant de gens ressembler, 

qui n'ont soucy autre que d'assembler. 7 

Tant qu'ils vivront, ils demanderont, eux ; 

mais je commence a devenir honteux, 

et ne veux plus a vos dons m'arrester. 

Je ne dis pas, si voulez rien prester, 

que ne le prenne. II n'est point de presteur 

s'il veut prester, qui ne fasse un debteur 



628 APPENDIX. 

Et scavez-vous, sire, comment je paye ? 
Nul ne le scait, si premier ne l'essaye. 
Vous me devrez, si je puis, du retour ; 
et vous feray encores un bon tour. 
A cette fin qu'il n'y ait faute nulle, 
je vous feray une belle sedulle, 
a vous payer (sans usure s'entend) 
quand on verra tout le monde content ; 
ou, si voulez, a payer ce sera 
quand votre los 8 et renom cessera. 

Voila le point principal de ma lettre : 
Vous seavez tout, il n'y faut plus rien mettre. 
Rien mettre, las ! certes et si feray, 
et ce faisant, mon style j'enfleray, 
disant : O roy amoureux des neuf muses ! 
Roy en qui sont leurs sciences infuses, 
Roy, plus que Mars, d'honneur environn£, 
Roy, le plus roy qui fut one couronne ; 
Dieu tout puissant te doint, pour t'etrenner, 
les quatre coins du monde a gouverner, 
tant pour le bien de la ronde machine, 
que pour autant que sur tous en es digne. 

I, fripon au jeu. 2, name which the Spartans gave to their slaves. 3, 
overcoat. 4, craignant la corde, craignant d'etre pendu. 5, financer. 6, sujet 
a etre vole. 7, amasser et entasser ecus sur ecus. 8, votre louange, votre 
gloire (in Latin laus). 



Francois Rabelais. 

Francois Rabelais was born in the year 1495, near Chinon in Touraine. 
His early education was much neglected ; he formed evil connections, contract- 
ed licentious habits, and led a life of vice and dissipation. He assumed, cast 
off, and reassumed religious orders, which he disgraced by his conduct and 
writings. Never will he be pardoned for having dipped his pen into the mire 
of debauchery, and for the manner in which he attacked religion by his raillery. 
Yet amid the most licentious pages, there are some stamped with enlightened 
reason and noble eloquence. His " Gargantua " has exercised a great influence 
on French literature. La Fontaine copied his language, which he has not im- 
proved, while Moliere has appropriated his characters and dialogues as his own. 
The following letter, from Gargantua to his son, will give an idea of Rabelais' 
style, and of the system of education which then appeared the best. It will 
show that he was not at heart an infidel, as has been sometimes asserted : 

Par quoy, mon fils, je t'admoneste qu'employe ta jeunesse a 
bien proufiter en estude et en vertus. Tu es a Paris, tu as ton 
precepteur Epistemon, dont Tun par vives et vocables instruc- 
tions, l'autre par louables exemples te peut endoctriner. J'entens 
et veulx que tu apprennes les langues parfaitement. Premiere- 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 629 

raent la grecque comme le veult Quintilian, secondement la latine 
et puis l'hebraique pour les saintes lettres et la chaldaique et ara- 
bique pareillement, et que tu formes ton style quant a la grecque, 
a. l'imitation de Platon ; quant a la latine, de Ciceron : qu'il n'y 
ait histoire que tu ne tiennes en memoire presente, a quoi t'ayde- 
ra la cosmographie de ceulx qui en ont escript. Des arts lib£- 
raulx, geometrie, arithmetique et musique, et t'en donnay quelque 
goust quand tu estois encore petit en l'aage de cinq ou six ans ; 
poursuys le reste, et d'astronomie saches en tous les canons. 
Laisse moy Tastrologie divinatrice et l'art de Lullius comme abuz 
et vanitez. Du droit civil je veux que tu scaiches par cueur les 
beaux textes et me les confere avecques philosophic 

Et quant a la cognoissance des faictz de nature, je veux que 
tu t'y adonnes curieusement, qu'il n'y ait mer, riviere, ni fontaine 
dont tu ne cognoisses les poissons ; tous les oyseaulx de Fair; 
tous les arbres, arbustes et frutices des forests, toutes les herbes 
de la terre, tous les metaulx caches au ventre des abymes, les 
pierreries de tout orient et midi, rien ne te soit incongneu. 

Mais parceque, selon le sage Salomon, sa science n'entre point 
en ame malivole, et science sans conscience n'est que ruyne de 
l'ame, il te convient servir, aimer et craindre Dieu et en lui mettre 
toutes les pensees et tout ton espoir, et par foy formee de charite, 
estre a lui adjoint, en sorte que jamais n'en soys desempare" par 
peche, aye suspectz les abus du monde, ne metz ton cueur a 
vanite : car cette vie est transitoire ; mais la parolle de Dieu de- 
meure 6ternellement. Sois serviable a tous tes prochains et les 
ayme comme toy mesme. Revere tes precepteurs, fuy les com- 
paignies des gens esquelz tu ne veulx point ressembler, et les 
graces que Dieu t'ha donnees, icelles ne recois en vain. Et 
quand tu congnoistras que tu auras tout le scavoir de par de la 
acquis, retourne vers moi, arm que je te voye et donne ma bene- 
diction devant que mourir. 



Pierre de Ronsard. 

Pierre de Ronsard was born the 10th of September, 1524, in Vendome, and 
sent quite young to Paris, where he entered college when hardly nine years old. 
But soon feeling a distaste for study, he entered as page the service of the Duke 
of Orleans, and, at the marriage of James Stuart with Mary of Lorraine, fol- 
lowed the latter to Scotland, where he remained about three years. Afterward, 
while traveling in divers parts of Europe, he became suddenly deaf, and it was 
only then, at the age of twenty, that he seriously applied himself to letters. No 
author has ever found more enthusiastic admirers during his lifetime, nor has 
any been more severely criticised by posterity. Deeply versed in the ancient lan- 
guages, his learning, added to his genius, might have gained him an imperish- 
able fame, were it not that, by his injudicious endeavors to improve the lan- 
guage by words and phrases borrowed from the Greek, his real merits have been 
eclipsed by his rash attempts at coining new words, in which, it must be said, 
he was not always fortunate. It must, however, be remembered that this was 



630 APPENDIX. 

the tendency of the age. At his time all minds were turned toward antiquity. 
The last expeditions into Italy had given access to the most valuable manuscripts. 
Already numerous but inferior translations had endeavored to reveal to the 
French public the genius of the Greek and Latin languages, but they were of no 
avail in the progress of the vernacular. Ronsard was the first who made any 
real effort. Thoroughly imbued with the beauties of antique eloquence, the 
national poetry seemed to him poor, timid, feeble, and without dignity ; he de- 
sired to impart to it the majesty, strength, and brilliancy of his favorite lan- 
guage, the Greek. But, perhaps, through want of taste or a proper sense of 
euphony, arising from his deafness, or else an inordinate desire for innovation, 
or, perhaps, through all these combined, he proceeded in his imitations without 
discrimination, and often with entire disregard for the genius of the French lan- 
guage. He has left us numerous works which are all subject to criticism on 
this account, and this is why sufficient credit has not been given to him for the 
notable benefit French poetry derived in other respects from his incessant la- 
bors. The following is a speech addressed by him to Charles IX during the 
minority of the latter : 

Sire, ce n'est pas tout que d'estre roi de France, 
il faut que la vertu honore votre enfance. 
Un roi, sans la vertu, porte le sceptre en vain, 
qui ne lui sert sinon d'un fardeau dans la main. 

On conte que Thetis, la femme de Pelee, 
apres avoir la peau de son enfant bruslee, 
pour le rendre immortel, le prit en son giron, 
et de nuit l'emporta dans l'antre de Chiron ; 
Chiron, noble centaure, arm de lui apprendre 
les plus rares vertus, des sa jeunesse tendre, 
et de science et d'art son Achille honorer. 
Un roi, pour estre grand, ne doit rien ignorer. 

II ne doit seulement seavoir Tart de la guerre, 

de garder les cites ou les ruer par terre ; 

car les princes mieux n£s n'estiment leur vertu 

proceder ni de sang ni de glaive pointu, 

ni de harnois ferres qui les peuples etonnent, 

mais par les beaux metiers que les Muses nous donnent. 

Quand les Muses, qui sont filles de Jupiter, 
dont les rois sont issus, les rois daignent chanter, 
elles les font marcher en toute reverence, 
loin de leur majeste" bannissant l'ignorance; 
et leur sage leeon leur apprend a seavoir 
juger de leurs sujets seulement a. les voir. 

Connoissez l'honneste homme humblement revetu, 

et discernez le vice, imitant la vertu ; 

puis sondez votre cceur, pour en vertu accroistre, 

II faut, dit Apollon, soi-mesme se connoistre ; 

celui qui se connoist est seul maistre de soi, 

et sans avoir royaume il est vraiment un roi. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 63 1 

Commencez done ainsi ; puis sitost que par l'age 
vous serez homme fait de corps et de courage, 
il faudra de vous-meme apprendre a commander, 
a ouir vos sujets, les voir et demander, 
les connoistre par nom et leur faire justice, 
honorer la vertu et corriger le vice. 

Malheureux sont les rois qui fondent leur appui 
sur l'aide d'un commis ; qui, par les yeux d'autrui 
voyant l'etat du peuple, entendent par l'oreille 
d'un natteur mensonger qui leur conte merveille. 

Aussi, pour estre roi, vous ne devez penser 
vouloir, comme un tyran, vos sujets offenser. 
Ainsi que notre corps, votre corps est de boue. 
Des petits et des grands la fortune se joue. 
Tous les regrets mondains se font et se defont, 
et, au gre de fortune, ils viennent et s'en vont, 
et ne durent non plus qu'une flamme allumee, 
qui soudain est eprise et soudain consumee. 

Or, sire, imitez Dieu, lequel vous a donne 
le sceptre, et vous a fait un grand roi couronne\ 
Faites misericorde a celui qui supplie ; 
punissez l'orgueilleux qui s'arme en sa folie. 

Ne soyez point moqueur ni trop haut a la main, 
vous souvenant toujours que vous estes humain. 
Ayez autour de vous personnes venerables, 
et les oyez parler volontiers a vos tables : 
soyez leur auditeur, comme fut votre ayeul, 
ce grand Francois, qui vit encores au cercueil. 

Ne souffrez que les grands blessent le populaire ; 

Ne souffrez que le peuple aux grands puisse deplaire ; 

Gouvernez votre argent par sagesse et raison. 

Le prince qui ne peut gouverner sa maison, 

sa femme, ses enfants et son bien domestique, 

ne scauroit gouverner une grand' republique. 1 

Or, sire, pour autant que nul n'a le pouvoir 
de chastier les rois qui font mal leur devoir, 
punissez-vous vous-meme, afin que la justice 
de Dieu, qui est plus grand, vos fautes ne punisse. 

Je dis ce puissant Dieu, dont l'empire est sans bout, 

qui de son trosne assis en la terre voit tout, 

et fait a un chacun ses justices £gales, 

autant aux laboureurs qu'aux personnes royales. 

1 The word republique is here employed in the sense of empire, state. 



632 APPENDIX. 

Le Loyal Serviteur. 

It is only under this name that the author of the chronicle of Chevalier 
Bayard is known. His work was printed for the first time in 1527, three years 
only after Bayard's death. This chronicle is one of the best written works of 
the time. Its style is elegant and delicate, its narration clear and precise, and 
its reflections brilliant and just. It is evident that the author lived on terms of 
close intimacy with his hero, and was imbued with his chivalrous spirit. The 
following fragment is especially interesting by its recording a tender mother's 
parting advice to her son Bayard on his leaving the parental roof to join the 
army of Duke Charles of Savoy : 

Fragment de la tres joyeuse et tres plaisante histoire compose'e par 
Le Loyal Serviteur des /aits, gestes, triomphes et prouesses du 
bon chevalier sans paour et sans reprouche, Le Gentil Seigneur 
de Bayari. 

. ... La povre dame de mere estoit en une tour du chasteau, 
qui tendrement plorait ; car combien qu'elle fut joyeuse dont son 
fils estoit en voye de parvenir, amour de mere l'admonestoit de 
larmoyer. Toutefois, apres qu'on luy fust venu dire : " Madame, 
si vous voulez venir voir votre fils, il est tout a cheval prest a 
partir," la bonne gentille femme sortit par le derriere de la tour et 
fist venir son fils vers elle, auquel elle dist ces parolles : st Pierre, 
mon amy, vous allez au service d'un gentil prince. D'autant que 
mere peult commander a son enfant, je vous commande trois 
choses tant que je puis ; et si vous les faites, soyez assure que 
vous vivrez triomphamment en ce monde : la premiere, c'est que, 
devant toutes choses, vous aymez, craignez et servez Dieu, sans 
aucunement l'offenser s'il vous est possible, car c'est celluy qui 
tous nous a crees, et qui nous fait vivre ; c'est celluy qui nous 
saulvera: et sans luy et sa grace ne saurions faire une seulle 
bonne ceuvre en ce monde; tous les soirs et tous les matins, 
recommandez-vous a luy, et il vous aydera. La seconde, c'est 
que vous soyez doulx et courtois a tout gentilhomme, en ostant 
de vous tout orgueil. Soyez humble et serviable a toutes gens ; 
ne soyez maldisant ne menteur ; maintenez-vous sobrement quant 
au boire et au manger. Fuyez envie, car c'est un vilain vice. 
Ne soyez fiatteur ne rapporteur ; car telles manieres de gens ne 
viennent pas voulentiers a grande perfection. Soyez loyal en 
faicts et diets ; tenez votre parolle. Soyez secourable aux povres 
veufves et aux orphelins, et Dieu vous le guerdonnera. La 
tierce, que des biens que Dieu vous donnera vous soyez charita- 
ble aux povres necessiteux; car donner pour l'honneur de luy 
n'apovrit oncques hommes; et sachez de moy, mon enfant, que 
telle aumosne que vous puissiez faire grandement vous prouffitera 
au corps et a l'ame. Vele tout ce que je vous en charge. Je 
crois bien que vostre pere et moy ne vivrons plus gueres, Dieu 
nous face la grace, a tout le moins tant que serons en vye, que 
toujours puissions avoir bon rapport de vous." 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 633 

Alors le bon chevalier quelque jeune age qu'il eust, lui re- 
spondit : " Madame ma mere, de vostre bon enseignement, tant 
humblement qu'il m'est possible, vous remercie ; et espere si bien 
l'ensuivre que. moyennant la grace de celluy en la garde duquel 
me recommandez, en aurez contentement. Et au demourant, 
apres m'estre tres humblement recommande a vostre bonne grace ; 
je vais prendre conge de vous." 

Alors la bonne dame tira hors de sa manche une petite bour- 
cette, en laquelle avoit seulement six escus en or et ung en mon- 
noye qu'elle donna a son fils ; et appella ung des serviteurs de 
l'evesque de Grenoble, son frere, auquel elle bailla une petite 
malette en laquelle avoit quelque linge pour la necessite de son 
fils, le priant que, quand il seroit presente a monseigneur de 
Savoye, il voulust prier le serviteur de l'escuyer, soubs la garde 
duquel il seroit, qu'il en prist un peu soing jusqu'e ce qu'il fust 
en plus grand age; et luy bailla deux escus pour luy donner. 
Sur ce propos print l'evesque de Grenoble conge de la compaignie 
et appela son nepveu, qui, pour se trouver sur son gentil roussin, 
pensoit estre en ung paradis. Si commencerent a marcher le 
chemin droit a Chambery, ou pour lors estoit le due Charles de 
Savoye. 



Pierre de Brantome. 

Pierre de Bourdeilles, better known as Brantome, was born in Perigord in 
the year 1540, and died the 5th of July, 1614. He is one of the authors of that 
epoch whose writings possess, perhaps, the greatest charms. As a skillful nar- 
rator, as an indefatigable observer, and actor in nearly all the scenes that he 
narrates, he knows how to arouse his readers, and make them interested in 
his recitals by his peculiar way of introducing them among the personages whose 
life he is relating. Although rather a lax moralist, he often finds eloquent words 
for great and noble actions. The following extract, narrating the death of 
Bayard, is a good specimen of his style : 

En cette mesme retraite fut tue aussi ce gentil et brave mon- 
sieur de Bayard, a qui ce jour monsieur de Bonnivet, qui avoit 
est£ blesse* en un bras d'une heureuse harquebuzade et pour ce 
se faisoit porter en litiere, luy donna toute la charge et le soin de 
l'armee et de toute la retraite, et luy avoit recommande l'honneur 
de France. Monsieur de Bayard qui avoit eu quelque pique au- 
paravant avec luy, respondit : " J'eusse fort voulu et qu'il eust 
ainsi plu a Dieu, que vous m'eussiez donne* cette charge honor- 
able, en fortune plus favorable a nous autres qu'a cette heure ; 
toutefois, de quelle maniere que la fortune traitte avec moy, je 
ferai en sorte que tant que je vivray rien ne tombera entre les 
mains de l'ennemy, que je ne le deffende valeureusement." Ainsi 
qu'il le promit, il le tint; mais les Espagnols et le marquis de 
Pescayre, usans de l'occasion, furent trop importuns a chasser les 
Francois, qu'ainsi que monsieur de Bayard les faisoit retirer tou- 
42 



634 APPENDIX. 

jours peu a peii* voicy une grande mousquetade qui donna a 
monsieur de Bayard, qui lui fracassa tous les reins. 

Aussitost qu'il se sentit frappe, il s'escria : " Ah, mon Dieu ! 
je suis mort." Si prit son espee par la poignee et en baisa la 
crois^e, en signe de la croix de nostre Seigneur, et dit tout haut : 
Miserere mei Deus ; puis, comme failly des esprits, il cuida tomber 
de cheval, mais encore eut-il le cceur de prendre l'arcon de la 
selle, et demeura ainsi jusques a ce qu'un gentilhomme, son mais- 
tre d'hostel, survint, qui luy ayda a descendre et l'appuyer contre 
un arbre. 

Soudain voile une rumeur entre les deux armees, que mon- 
sieur de Bayard estoit mort. Voyez comme la renommee sou- 
dain publie le mal, comme le bien. Les nostres s'en effrayerent 
grandement ; si bien que le desordre fut grand parmy eux, et les 
Imperiaux furent promps a les chasser. Si n'y eust-il galant 
homme parmy eux, qui ne le regrettoit ; et le venoit voir qui pou- 
voit, comme une belle relique, en passant et chassant tousjours ; 
car il avoit cette coustume de leur faire la guerre la plus honneste 
du monde et la plus courtoise ; et y en eut aucuns qui furent si 
courtois et bons, qu'ils le voulurent emporter en quelque logis 
la-pres ; mais il les pria qu'ils le laissassent dans le camp mesme 
qu'il avoit combattu, ainsi qu'il convenoit a un homme de guerre 
et qui avoit tousjours desire de mourir arme\ 

Sur ce arriva monsieur le marquis de Pescayre qui luy dit : 
" Je voudrois de bon cceur, monsieur de Bayard, avoir donne la 
moitie de mon vaillant, et que je vous tinsse mon prisonnier, bien 
sain et bien sauve, afm que vous puissiez ressentir par les cour- 
toisies que recevriez de moy, combien j'estime vostre valeur et 
haute prouesse. Je me souviens qu'estant bien jeune, le premier 
los que vous donnerent ceux de ma nation, ce fut qu'ils disoient : 
muchos grisonnes, y pocos Bayardos} Aussi, depuis que j'ai eu 
connoissance des armes, je nay point ouy parler d'un chevalier 
qui approchast de vous. Et puisqu'il n'y a remede de la mort, 
je prie Dieu qu'il retire vostre belle ame aupres de luy, comme 
je croy qu'il le fera." 

Incontinent monsieur le marquis de Pescayre deputa gardes 
aupres dudit sieur de Bayard, et leur commanda qu'elles ne bou- 
geassent d'aupres de luy, et, sur la vie, ne l'abandonnassent qu'il 
ne fust mort, et qu'il ne luy fust fait aucun outrage, ainsi qu'est 
la coustume d'aucune racaille de soldats qui ne scavent encore 
les courtoisies de la guerre, ou bien des grands marauts de goujats 
qui sont encore pires. Cela se voit souvent aux armees. 

II fut done tendu a monsieur de Bayard un beau pavilion, 
pour se reposer ; et puis, ayant demeure en cet estat deux ou 
trois heures, il mourut; et les Espagnols enleverent son corps 
avec tous les honneurs du monde en l'eglise, et par l'espace de 

1 Beaucoup de grisons et peu de Bayards. 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 635 

deux jours luy fut fait service tres-solemnel ; et puis les Espag- 
nols le rendirent a. ses serviteurs qui l'emmenerent en Dauphine, 
a Grenoble ; et le, receu par la cour de Parlement et une infinite 
de monde, qui l'allerent recueillir et luy firent de beaux et grands 
services en la grande eglise de Nostre-Dame, et puis fut porte en 
terre a deux lieues de la, chez les Minimes. 



Michel de Montaigne. 

Michel de Montaigne was born in Perigord, the 28th of February, 1533, of 
a family originally English. Brought up during his younger years with village 
children, and among persons of the most humble condition, in order that he 
might become familiar with the class which bears the heaviest burden of society, 
Montaigne afterward received, under the paternal roof, a thorough and judicious 
education, which enabled his mind to follow the dictates of his nature. With 
the eye of a profound observer he saw the progress of the religious revolution 
made by Calvin and Luther at the moment that Copernicus overthrew all former 
notions in the system of the universe. He witnessed the last years of Francis I, 
and the severities of the latter and son against the Protestants. The reign of 
Charles IX, the intrigues of Catharine de' Medici, the massacre of Saint Bartholo- 
mew, the League, the assassination of Henry III, the rise and fall of the Guises, 
and the thirty years of civil war, hardly extinguished by the accession of Henry 
IV, had all passed before him. Rome itself never offered to the observing mind 
of Tacitus anything so instructive as the manners, opinions, and events of France 
contempoi'ary with Montaigne. Neither can the writings of Tacitus, nor of any 
other, be compared with his Essays in the knowledge of man which he has por- 
trayed with the utmost truth and exactitude. Montaigne taught us to doubt 
before Descartes ; he endeavored to reform the human understanding before 
Bacon, and may, with these great men, be considered the restorer of philosophy 
in Europe. He died the 13th of September, 1592. 

MEPR1S DE LA MORT. 

Notre religion n'a point eu de plus asseure fondement humain, 
que le mepris de la vie. Non seulement le discours de la raison 
nous y appelle, car pourquoy craindrions-nous de perdre une 
chose, laquelle perdue ne peult estre regrettee ? Mais aussi 
puisque nous sommes menacez de tant de facons de mort, n'y a-il 
pas plus de mal a les craindre toutes qu'a en soutenir une ? Que 
chault il quand ce soit, puisqu'elle est inevitable ? A celui qui disoit 
a, Socrates : Les trente tyrans t'ont condemne a la mort ; " Et 
nature, eulx," respondit il. Quelle sottise de nous peiner, sur le 
poinct du passage a, l'exemption de toute peine ! Corame notre 
naissance nous apporta la naissance de toutes choses ; aussi nous 
apportera la mort de toutes choses, nostre mort. Parquoy c'est 
pareille folie de pleurer de ce que d'icy a cent ansnous ne vivrons 
pas, que de pleurer de ce que nous ne vivions pas il y a cent ans. 
La mort est origine d'une aultre vie ; ainsi pleurasmes nous, ainsi 
nous cousta il d'entrer en cette cy, ainsi nous despouillasmes nous 
de nostre ancien voile en y entrant. Rien ne peult estre grief, 
qui n'est qu'une fois. Est-ce raison de craindre si longtemps 



636 " APPENDIX. 

chose de si brief temps ? Le long temps vivre et le peu de temps 
vivre, est rendu tout un par la mort : car le long et le court n'est 
point aux choses qui ne sont plus. Aristote diet qu'il y a des petites 
bestes sur la riviere de Hypanis, qui ne vivent qu'un jour; celle 
qui meurt a huict heures du matin, elle meurt en ieunesse ; celle 
qui meurt a cinq heures du soir, meurt en sa decrepitude. Qui 
de nous ne se mocque de veoir mettre en consideration d'heur ou 
de malheur ce moment de duree? Le plus et le moins en la 
nostre si nous la comparons a l'eternite, ou encores a la duree des 
montaignes, des rivieres, des estoiles, des arbres, et mesme d'aul- 
cuns animaulx, n'est pas moins ridicule. 



We here close the list of specimens of Early French 
which, like those we have seen of Early English, include 
every class of literature of the time, from the middle of 
the ninth to the end of the sixteenth century, arranged in 
chronological order, that the student, in comparing them 
with the specimens of Anglo-Norman French found in 
another chapter, may notice the steady progress of the 
former and the gradual decline of the latter. The differ- 
ent forms which words assume in both — the result of dia- 
lectic differences at various times and in various localities 
— will likewise account for the difference of form we find 
in many words which French and English have in com- 
mon, and which, in some instances, is such as to disguise, 
though never obliterate entirely, the features which mark 
their real origin. Words, on the other hand, which 
Modern English and French have retained alike, or nearly 
so, often present different shades of meaning, owing to 
causes and circumstances sometimes involving nice his- 
torical questions, for which the study of these words gen- 
erally offers the best solution. 

Language, being ever in flux and flow, and, for nations 
to which letters are still strange, existing only as a sound, 
we might be induced to believe would prove the least 
trustworthy of all vehicles whereby the knowledge of the 
past has reached our present. In actual fact, however, it 
has not proved so at all. It is the main, oftentimes the 
only, connecting link between the two — an ark riding 
above the waterfloods that have swept away or submerged 
every other landmark and memorial of bygone ages and 
vanished generations of men. We have had, elsewhere, 
occasion to notice the marvellous vitality of local names, 
and their great value in historical investigations ; equally 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 63 J 

conservative are the powers of common names ; and so 
well is history in most of them imbedded, that we may 
continually trace in speech the record of customs and 
states of society which have now passed so entirely away 
as to survive in words alone. Seeing, then, that language 
contains so faithful a record of the past, we shall not err 
if we regard it as the instrument which, better than any 
other, marks permanently the rise and fall of a nation's 
life. To study a people's language, especially in its pecu- 
liarities, the form of its words, their modified meanings, 
will be to study the people themselves, and to study them 
to best advantage — there where they present themselves 
to us under fewest disguises — not only as they are, but 
even as they have been. 

Applied to the English people and to the English lan- 
guage, we can not better conclude our remarks than by 
quoting here the words of one of England's ripe scholars 
who, in a few brilliant sentences, has eloquently summed 
up the leading features of a subject the details of which 
we have endeavored, in this work, at some length to ex- 
plain : 

" You know," he says, 1 " how the geologist is able from 
the different strata and deposits, primary, secondary, or 
tertiary, succeeding one another, which he meets, to arrive 
at a knowledge of the successive physical changes through 
which a region has passed ; how he is, so to say, in a con- 
dition to preside at those past changes, to measure the 
forces that were at work to produce them, and almost to 
indicate their date. Now, with such a language as the 
English before us, bearing as it does the marks and foot- 
prints of great revolutions profoundly impressed upon it, 
we may carry on moral and historical researches precisely 
analogous to his. Here, too, are strata and deposits, not 
of gravel and chalk, sandstone and limestone, but of Celt- 
ic, Latin, Low German, Danish, Norman words, and then 
once more Latin and French, with slighter intrusions from 
many other quarters : and any one with skill to analyze 
the language might, up to a certain point, re-create for 
himself the history of the people speaking that language, 
might with tolerable accuracy appreciate the divers ele- 
ments out of which that people was made up, in what pro- 
portion these were mingled, and in what succession they 
followed, one upon the other. 

1 R. C. Trench, On the Study of Words, 



638 APPENDIX. 

" Would he trace, for example, the relation in which 
the English and Norman occupants of this land stood to 
one another? An account of this, in the main as accurate 
as it would be certainly instructive, might be drawn from 
an intelligent study of the contributions which they have 
severally made to the English language, as bequeathed to 
us jointly by them both.- Supposing all other records to 
have perished, we might still work out and almost recon- 
struct the history by these aids ; even as now, when so 
many documents, so many institutions survive, this must 
still be accounted the most important, and that of which 
the study will introduce us, as no other can, into the in- 
nermost heart and life of large periods of our history. 

" Nor, indeed, is it hard to see why the language must 
contain such instruction as this, when we a little realize 
to ourselves the stages by which it has reached us in its 
present shape. There was a time when the languages 
which the English and the Norman severally spoke, existed 
each by the side of, but unmingled with, the other ; one 
that of the small dominant class, the other that of the great 
body of the people. By degrees, however, with the recon- 
ciliation and partial fusion of the two races, the two lan- 
guages effected a transaction ; one indeed prevailed over 
the other, but at the same time received a multitude of 
the words of that other into its own bosom. At once 
there would exist duplicates for many things. But as in 
popular speech two words will not long exist side by side 
to designate the same thing, it became a question how the 
relative claims of the English and Norman word should 
adjust themselves, which should remain, which should be 
dropped ; or, if not dropped, should be transferred to some 
other object, or express some other relation. It is not, of 
course, meant that this was ever formally proposed, or as 
something to be settled by agreement ; but practically 
one was to be taken and one left. Which was it that 
should maintain its ground? Evidently, where a word 
was often on the lips of one race, its equivalent seldom 
on those of the other, where it intimately cohered with 
the whole manner of life of one, was only remotely in con- 
tact with that of the other, where it laid strong hold on 
one, and only slight on the other, the issue could not be 
doubtful. In several cases the matter was simpler still : 
it was not that one word expelled the other, or that rival 
claims had to be adjusted ; but that there never had ex- 
isted more than one word, the thing which that word 



FRENCH SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH. 639 

noted having been quite strange to the other section of 
the nation. 

" Here is the explanation of the assertion made just now 
— namely, that we might almost reconstruct our history, 
so far as it turns upon the Norman conquest, by an analy- 
sis of our present language, a mustering of its words in 
groups, and a close observation of the nature and charac- 
ter of those which the two races have severally contribu- 
ted to it. Thus we should confidently conclude that the 
Norman was the ruling race, from the noticeable fact that 
all the words of dignity, state, honor, and pre-eminence, 
with one remarkable exception (to be adduced presently), 
descend to us from them — ' sovereign,' 4 sceptre,' ' throne,' 
'realm,' 'royalty,' 'homage,' 'prince,' 'duke,' 'count' 
(' earl ' indeed is Scandinavian, though he must borrow 
his ' countess' from the Norman), ' chancellor,' ' treasurer,' 
' palace,' ' castle,' ' hall,' ' dome,' and a multitude more. 
At the same time the one remarkable exception of ' king ' 
would make us, even did we know nothing of the actual 
facts, suspect that the chieftain of this ruling race came in 
not upon a new title, not as overthrowing a former dy- 
nasty, but claiming to be in the rightful line of its succes- 
sion; that the true continuity of the nation had not, in 
fact, any more than in word, been entirely broken, but 
survived, in due time to assert itself anew. 

" And yet, while the statelier superstructure of the 
language, almost all articles of luxury, all having to do 
with the chase, with chivalry, with personal adornment, 
are Norman throughout ; with the broad basis of the lan- 
guage, and therefore of the life, it is otherwise. The great 
features of nature, sun, moon, and stars, earth, water, and 
fire ; the divisions of time ; three out of the four seasons, 
spring, summer, and winter ; the features of natural scenery ; 
the words used in earliest childhood ; the simpler emotions 
of the mind ; all the prime social relations, father, mother, 
husband, wife, son, daughter, brother, sister — these are of 
native growth and unborrowed. ' Palace ' and ' castle ' 
may have reached us from the Norman, but to the Saxon 
we owe far dearer names, the ' house,' the ' roof,' the 
' home,' the ' hearth.' His ' board,' too, and often proba- 
bly it was no more, has a more hospitable sound than the 
' table ' of his lord. His sturdy arms turn the soil ; he is 
the 'boor,' the ' hind,' the ' churl' ; or, if his Norman mas- 
ter has a name for him, it is one which on his lips becomes 
more and more a title of opprobrium and contempt, the 



640 APPENDIX, 

1 villain.' The instruments used in cultivating the earth, 
the ' flail/ the 'plow,' the ' share,' the ' rake,' the ' scythe,' 
the ' harrow,' the ' wain,' the ' sickle,' the ' spade,' the 
' sheaf,' the ' barn,' are expressed in his language ; so, too, 
the main products of the earth, as wheat, rye, oats, bere, 
grass, flax, hay, straw, weeds ; and no less the names of 
domestic animals. You will remember, no doubt, how in 
the matter of these Wamba, the Saxon jester in Ivanhoe, 
plays the philologer, having noted that the names of al- 
most all animals, so long as they are alive, are Saxon, but 
when dressed and prepared for food become Norman — a 
fact, he would intimate, not very wonderful ; for the Saxon 
hind had the charge and labor of tending and feeding 
them, but only that they might appear on the table of his 
Norman lord. Thus ' ox,' ' steer,' ' cow,' are Saxon, but 

* beef ' Norman ; ' calf ' is Saxon, but ' veal ' Norman ; 

* sheep ' is Saxon, but ' mutton ' Norman ; so it is severally 
with ' swine ' and ' pork,' ' deer ' and ' venison,' ' fowl ' and 

* pullet.' ' Bacon,' the only flesh which perhaps ever came 
within the hind's reach, is the single exception. Putting 
all this together, with much more of the same kind, which 
has only been indicated here, we should certainly gather, 
that while there are manifest tokens preserved in our lan- 
guage of the Saxon having been for a season an inferior 
and even an oppressed race, the stable elements of Eng- 
lish life, however overlaid for a while, had still made good 
their claim to be the solid groundwork of the after nation 
as of the after language ; and to the justice of this conclu- 
sion all other historic records, and the present social con- 
dition of England, consent in bearing witness." 



INDEX 



a. Norse root in local names, meaning 
" an island," 177. 

Abbaye de la Bataille, 229. 

Abelard, 502. 

Acad6mie Francaise, 514-516 ; a simi- 
lar institution for England proposed 
by Swift, 367. 

Adam Davie, 336. 

Adenet le Roy, 501. 

a/on. See avon. 

Addison, 367, 368. 

Agricola, 39 ; his military skill, and 
beneficial government of Britain, 41 ; 
his endeavors to introduce Roman 
civilization among the Britons, 55. 

Agriculture among the Gauls in Brit- 
ain, 10 ; among the Anglo-Saxons, 
102. 

Alamanni, 72, 548. 

Alani, 53, 54, 85. 

Alben, 3. 

Albion, 4. 

Alcuin, 138, 141, 142, 159, 162, 163, 
246. 

Aldhelm, 115, 116. 

Alfred, 152 ; his struggle with the 
Danes, 153-155 ; his endeavors to 
rescue his dominions from illiteracy 
and ignorance, 156—158. 

all, Gaelic root in English river names, 
meaning " white," 122. 

Allectus, 46. 

Allemand, 548. 

Alphabet, Roman, 137 ; Runic, 133 ; 
Ogham, 135; Moeso - Gothic, 133; 
Irish, 138, 139 ; Anglo-Saxon, 139 ; 
black-letter, 139 ; Old English, 378- 
33o. 

am. See ham. 

Ambrosius Aurelius, 58. 

Ancren Riwle, 397-402. 

Anderida, sack of, 100. 

Aneurin, 31, 61. 

Angles, 81 ; only incidentally men- 
tioned by Tacitus, 81 ; placed by 
41 



Ptolemy on the middle Elbe, 81 ; 
the name not derived from the An- 
gidus in Sleswick, 82. 

Anglo-Norman French, 252 ; its growth 
and decline, 253-268 ; specimens of, 
269-291. 

Anglo-Norman local and patronymic 
names, 301, 306, 307, 312, 313, 317- 
320. 

Anglo-Saxon, the name of, 371-373 ; 
the language a conglomerate of va- 
rious Teutonic dialects, 167; its gram- 
mar, 168, 350, 353-356 ; its litera- 
ture, 109-117, 168, 169 ; its alpha- 
bet, 139, Specimens of Anglo-Saxon 
language, 64, 157, 170, 171,383, 386. 

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 60, 64, 65, 99, 
100, 298, 381-384. 

Anglo-Saxon roots in English local 
names, 185, 196. 

Anglo-Saxons. See Saxons. 

Angrivari, 79. 

Animals, sacred, 30 ; restrictions as to 
the killing or eating certain class of, 
31 ; worship of, 32 ; surnames de- 
rived from, 308, 309. 

Anselm, 210, 247. 

Aries, 552, 553. 

Arminius, 79. 

ard, Gaelic root in English local names, 
meaning "high, great," 124. 

Armorica, 458, 532 ; dialect of, see 
B as- Breton. 

Arthur, 59. 

ap, Welsh prefix in family names, 19 1. 

Aquitaine, 457, 458, 484, 552. 

Art of printing, 360, 365. 

Arts, 524 ; arts schools, 330. 

Asega-boc, 68. 

Asser, the biographer of King Alfred, 
128, 150, 156, 204, 330, 382. 

Athelstan III, song on his victory at 
Brunanburh, ill, 112. 

Atrebates, 35. 

Attacotti, 51, 52. 



642 



INDEX. 



Attuarii, 75, 76. 

Aubigny, Agrippa d', 365. 

Augustin, 105 ; his mission to England, 

106 ; his conversion to Christianity 

of King Ethelbert and followers, 107. 
Augustine friars, 425. 
Augustus, 34, 460. 
avon, Welsh root in English river 

names, meaning " water," 120 ; in 

French river names, 540. 
ay, Norse root in English local names, 

meaning "an island," 177. 
Aymon de Varenne's, 496. 

Baccalarius, 519-522. 

Baccalaureus, 526. 

Bachelette, 525. 

Bachelier, 521. 

Bachelor, 519-526. 

Bacon, 327, 366. 

Badon (Mons Badonicus), siege of, 61. 

bal, balla, bally, Erse and Gaelic roots, 

meaning " an inclosure," 187, 317. 
Balzac, Jean de, 512. 
ban, Erse and Gaelic root in English 

river names, meaning " white," 122. 
Banquet, 114. 
Baodicea, revolt of, 39. 
Barbarian, 461, 472. 
Barbour, John, 361, 440-442. 
Bards, 2, 15, 25, 26, 59, 535. 
Baron, 485. 
Barrows, of Neolithic tribes, 18 ; of 

Bronze Age, 19. 
Bartas, Guillaume du, 365, 509. 
Bartun, 102, 186. 
Bas-Breton or Brezonec, 21, 464, 543 ; 

similarity to the Welsh, 23, 24, 532 ; 

specimen of, 543. 
Basques, 15. 
Basselin, Olivier, 623. 
Batavi, 36, 43 ; their bravery and faith 

as Roman allies, 75. 
Battle of Hastings, 226-228. 
Battel Abbey, 229 ; Great Roll of, 306. 
Baxter, 367. 
Bayeux, 80 ; Saxon settlement near, 

80, 207, 208, 549 ; tapestry of, 207, 

229, 549- 
bee, beck, beek, Norse and Dutch roots 

in English and French river names, 

meaning " a stream," 122, 177, 550. 
Bede, 63, 64, 103, 106, 109, 138, 140, 

382. 
Belga;, 2, 5, 8, 35, 458. 
Bellay, du, 365, 505. 
Beltain fires, 29. 
ben, Gaelic root in English mountain 

names, meaning " head," 123. 



Benedictines, 159, 330, 486. 

Beneoit de Sainte-More, 208, 271. 

Beowulf, epic poem of, 92. 

Bersekir, 149. 

Bigot, 481. 

Bill of dinner-fare, A. D. 1452, 446. 

Birds, surnames derived from, 308, 309. 

bcetif, beuf, bue, Norman roots in 
French local names, derived from 
the Danish by, which see, 549, 550. 

Boniface, 159. 

Boomerang, 9. 

Boor, 466. 

Borough. See burgh. 

bosc, Dutch and Norse root in French 
local names, meaning " a grove, a 
wood, a forest," 551. 

Bourgeois, 528. 

Bourges, 459. 

Bragi, the Norse god of song, 185. 

Brantome, Pierre de, 633-635. 

Brennus, 457. 

Bretons, 18, 63, 540-543 ; their gradual 
retrocession westward, 541. 

Brezonec, or Breyzad. See Bas-Breton. 

Brigantes, 14, 41. 

Britain, origin of the name, 3 ; pre- 
historic, 15-20; Gaulish settlements 
in, see Gauls ; Gaelic settlements in, 
see Gaels ; Roman conquest of, 34 ; 
end of Roman ride, 54 ; Britain full 
of Teutonic settlements, 57, 71 ; its 
wealth and commerce attract the 
continental pirates, 72 ; early Saxon 
colonization of, 73, 96 ; engagement 
of foreign soldiers as auxiliaries in 
its wars against the Picts and Scots, 
59 ; time of the commencement of 
Saxon hostilities uncertain, 95 ; par- 
ticipation of foreign residents in hos- 
tile enterprises of the Saxons, 97 ; 
the invasion slow and gradual, 97 ; 
condition of the British natives under 
Saxon rule, 98. 

British tribes, 1-20 ; dialects, 23; dwell- 
ings, 6 ; farming, 10 ; a, homestead, 
10 ; commerce, 6, 35, 71 ; religion, 
26 ; Druidism, 27, 32. 

Brittany, 21, 532, 540-543 ; British 
exiles in, 63 ; its language resembles 
the Welsh, 23, 464, 540, 542 ; Celtic 
literature in, 541 ; specimen of the 
dialect of, 543 ; old superstitions sur- 
viving in, 18, 30, 533, 534. 

Bronze Age, 16 ; tribes in Britain, 19. 

Browne, Sir Thomas, 367, 369. 

brough. See burgh. 

Bructeri, 75, 76. 

Brunetto Latini, 502. 



INDEX. 



643 



bue. See bceuf. 

Burgess, 528. 

burgh, Teutonic root in local names, 

meaning " a small fortified height," 

187, 466, 528. 
Burgundians, 72, 196, 467, 468, 493, 

495, 49 8 - 

Burgundy, 484. 

bury. See burgh. 

by, Danish root in English local names, 
meaning " a dwelling, a farm, a vil- 
lage, a town," 178, 179, 180, 192 ; in 
French local names, 550. 

Csedmon, 109 ; character of his poetry, 
no, 113. 

caer. See caster. 

Caesar, his conquest of Gaul, 458 ; his 
description of the Gaulish tribes in 
Britain, 5 ; of British ships, 12 ; of 
the Gaulish religion, 27 ; his pretext 
for invading Britain, 12 ; his con- 
quest of the island underrated by the 
leading Romans, 34 ; its results, 35. 

Caledonia, 3. 

Caledonians, 15, 42, 43. 

Calvin, 365, 508. 

cam, Welsh root in English river 
names, meaning "crooked," 122. 

Cambria, 3. 

Cambrians, 2, 4, 42, 57, 59. 

Cambridge University, 330, 331, 392, 
502, 579- 

Camps, Roman, the origin of many 
English cities, 44 ; ancient local 
names derived from them, see cas- 
ter. 

Camulodunum, capture of, 36. 

Cannenefati, 78. 

Cantii, 5. 

Cantilene de Sainte Eulalie, 500, 602- 
604. 

Capellani, 6. 

car. See caster. 

Caracalla, 46, 461. 

Caractacus, 36. 

Carausius, revolt of, 46. 

Carmelite friars, 425. 

Carolinian psalms, 93. 

Cartismandua, 14, 41. 

caster, caer, car, cester, chester, Latin 
roots in English local names, 130, 

131. 
Catechism, the maister of Oxford's, 

444-446, 
Catherine de Medicis, 511, 556. 
Catigern, 60, 69. 
Catti. See Chatti. 
Cattle, British, 10. 



Catuvellaunian confederacy, 6. 
Catyeuchlany, 6. 

Causativeness, changes of words aris- 
ing from, 344, 345. 
Cave-men, 2, 17. 

Caxton, William, 340, 361, 450-452. 
cefn, Welsh root in English mountain 
names, meaning " back, ridge," 123. 
Celtic, migration into the British Isles, 
1 ; language and dialects, 20-24, 
530-543 ; their gradual extinction in 
England, 20 ; in France, 541 ; mythol- 
ogy, 25-30 ; common names in the 
English vocabulary, 105, 117, 118 ; 
in the French vocabulary, 530-539 ; 
local names in England, 1 1 8-1 2 5 ; in 
France, 540, 541 ; names of rivers, 
119, 540, 541 ; of mountains, 123 ; 
of valleys, 125 ; of dwellings, 124 ; 
of inclosures, 125 ; of churches, 125 ; 
of hill fortresses, 124, 541. 

Celtic literature, 21-24, 541 ; Celtic 
spirit largely diffused into English 
poetry, 117 ; traces of Celtic influ- 
ence on French grammar, 542 ; Celt- 
ic population in England, 126, 127 ; 
in France, 541, 542. 

Celtomania, 543. 

Celts, in Britain, see British ; in 
Gaul, 458, etc. ; gradual retroces- 
sion of the Celts in England, 126 ; 
in France, 542. 

cenn, Gaelic root in English mountain 
names, meaning "head," 123. 

Centena, 103. 

cester. See caster. 

Changes, phonetic, of words among 
unlettered people, 344, 345. 

Chanson de Roland, 69, 479, 500, 501, 
604, 605. 

Chariots, scythed, 9. 

Charlemagne, 81, 141, 145, 159, 160, 
161, 482, 486, 553. 

Charles the Bald, 480, 482, 486. 

Charles the Simple, 481. 

Chatti, 75, 81, 175- 

Chattuari, 75, 76. 

Chaucer, Jeffrey, 263, 266, 339-342, 
361, 429-433- 

Chauci, 71, 79, 80. 

Chester. See caster. 

Chevalier, 218. 

Chivalry, 490, 491. 

Christian, church in Britain, 50, 51 ; 
hymns crowding out heathen songs, 
1 10. 

Christianity in Britain, tolerated by 
Hadrian, protected by Constantius, 
and recognized as the religion of 



644 



INDEX. 



state by Constantine, 50 ; not 
preached to the Saxons before the 
mission of Augustin, 106 ; first 
preached in Kent, 107 ; conversion 
of Ethelbert and followers, 108 ; 
Christianity the cradle of English 
literature, 116 ; Christianity in Gaul, 
464 ; conversion of Clovis and fol- 
lowers, 469, 470. 

Christians, in Britain, classed by Ha- 
drian as worshipers of Serapis, 50. 

Churl, 466, 572. 

Circus, games in the Roman, 37 ; in- 
troduced into Gaul, 461. 

Claims of descent from animals, 31. 

Clan, 118, 191. 

Claudius, 36, 37, 460, 461. 

clith, Gaelic root in English river 
names, meaning " strong," 122. 

Clochans, Irish, 18. 

Cloth, Gaulish, 7. 

Clothilda, queen of Clovis, 469. 

Clovis, or Hlodowig, 76, 77, 469, 470. 

Cockney, 336. 

Codex Argenteus, 90. 

Coins, ancient British, 56 ; ancient 
Gaulish, 552. 

College degrees, 524, 525. 

College studies in the Middle Ages, 

524- 

Co lorn a, 130. 

Colonies, Friesian, in Denmark, 78 ; 
in Britain, 96 ; Saxon, in Britain, 
96, 185-196; in Gaul, 80 ; Norse, 
in England, 174-185 ; in France, 
201-213, 549-5 5 1 I Flemish, in Pem- 
brokeshire, 182. 

Colonization, character of the Teu- 
tonic, in Britain, 191 ; of the Scan- 
dinavian, in England, 192. 

combe, Celtic and Saxon root in Eng- 
lish local names, meaning " a cup- 
shaped depression among the hills," 
189. 

Comines, Philippe de, 625. 

Commerce between Gaul and Britain, 
12, 36, 71 ; between Gaul and Rome, 
459, 460. 

Commius, 36. 

Condition of the Britons under Ro- 
man rule, 38, 39 ; under Saxon rule, 
97-106 ; of the Saxons under Danish 
rule, 152, 156 ; of the English peo- 
ple during the century preceding 
the Norman Conquest, 197-199 ; af- 
ter the Norman Conquest, 231-243. 

Conquest, Roman, of Gaul, 459 ; of 
Britain, 34 ; Saxon, of Britain, 57 ; 
Danish, of England, 143 ; Norman, 



of Neustria, 201 ; of England, 204 ; 
various conquests compared, 243- 

245. 
Constantine the Great, 48, 72. 
Constantine (the soldier), 54. 
Constantius Chlorus, 47, 48, 72. 
Construction of Roman walls, 44. 
Coral, ancient use of, for ornaments, 

35. 

Coranians, or Coritani, 5, 72. 

Cornavii, 13. 

Cornish dialect, extinct, 21. 

Corruption of words from mistakes or 
misconception, 344, 345. 

Cotgrave, French-English dictionary 
(1611), 267, 514. 

Count of the Saxon shore, 49, 52, 73, 
80, 96. 

Court of Dens, 188. 

Covini, 9. 

craig, Cymric root, meaning " a rock/' 
118. 

Crests and emblems, 31, 69. 

Crocus, or Hrocus, 48, 72. 

Cromlechs, 16, 25. 

Cruithnigh, 42. 

Culdees, their ecclesiastic establish- 
ments in Scotland and Ireland, 117. 

Cunobelin, 55. 

Curraghs, 13. 

Cymry, meaning of the name, 3 ; their 
settlements in Wales, 3 ; in Scot- 
land, 123, 317. 

Cynewulf, 101, 115. 

Cyttiau y Gwyddelad, 3. 

dal, dot, Celtic roots in English local 
names, meaning " a plain," 124. 

dal, dael, dale, Dutch and Norse roots 
in English local names, meaning " a 
valley," 124, 177, 551. 

Damnonians, n ; their civilization 
and commerce, 12 ; their alliance 
with the Veneti the immediate cause 
or pretext of Caesar's invasion of 
Britain, 12 ; Caesar's description of 
their ships, 12. 

Danelagh, 179, 180. 

Danes, known by various names, 143 ; 
their origin and continental homes, 
143 ; their national character and 
piratical associations, 144-149 ; their 
early expeditions against England, 
150 ; nearly all England at one 
time overrun by Danish armies, 152 ; 
their constant wars and permanent 
settlements in England prejudicial 
to the formations of national charac- 
ter, 155, 196. 



INDEX. 



645 



Danish influence on the national lan- 
guage, 156, 173, 174, 348, 349, 351 ; 
specimen of Danish language, 94 ; 
English local names indicating 
original Danish settlements, 174- 
183 ; Danish surnames in England, 
314; Danish settlements in France, 

549- 

Dark prehistoric races, 15 ; traces of, 
in the British Isles, 16. 

Dean Colet, 364. 

del, old Friesian suffix in local names, 
meaning " a valley," 177. 

Demetae, 13. 

Difference between written and spoken 
language, 167, 347, 559~503 ; be- 
tween classical and popular Latin, 
see Latin. 

den, Celto-Saxon root in English local 
names, meaning " a deep-wooded ra- 
vine, a swine pasture," 188. 

Descartes, Rene, 513. 

Deuce, origin of the name, 184. 

Devil, legends attaching to places 
named after him, 184. 

dhu, Welsh and Gaelic root in Eng- 
lish river names, meaning " black," 
122. 

Dialect as distinguished from "patois," 
496, 497. 

Dialectic differences among the an- 
cient Greeks, 497, 498 ; among the 
ancient Romans, 559, 560, 562, 563 ; 
among the Celtic nations, 21-24, 
458, 542 ; among the Teutonic and 
Scandinavian nations, 89-95, 167 ; 
among the Anglo-Saxons, 89, 164, 
348, 351, 352 ; in mediaeval Eng- 
land, 126, 196, 266, 325, 335, 341, 

343, 348, 358, 36i, 363, 377 ; in 
mediaeval France, 492, 495, 497. 

Dieppe, 550. 

din, dinas, dins, Welsh root, meaning 
" a hill fortress," 124. 

Diocletian, 47 ; his scheme of govern- 
ment, 47 ; amended by Constantine 
the Great, 48. 

Dismemberment of the empire of 
Charlemagne, 484. 

Division of Roman Britain into five 
provinces, 48. 

Divitiacus, 5, 27. 

Dobuni, 13. 

do I. See da I. 

Dolmens, 17. 

Domestic life in ancient Britain, 10. 

Domesday-book, 186, 241, 250, 274, 
306. 

Dominican friars, 425. 



don, Saxon corruption of the Celtic 
dun, which see. 

Donder. See Thor. 

dour. See dwr. 

Druidism, in Britain, 25 ; in Gaul, 26 ; 
in Scotland and Ireland, 28 ; origin 
of, 27 ; theories about, 27 ; doctrines 
of, 29 ; its influence on the literature 
of romance, 25 ; relics of the old 
creed, 29. 

Druids, 17, 23, 530; the British, 28; 
their ceremonies and human sacri- 
fices, 29 ; the Gaulish, 28, 530 ; their 
acquaintance with the doctrines of 
Pythagoras, and their belief in an 
Elysium, 30 ; Roman opinions of 
them, 30. 

Dryden, 367. 

dun, Celtic root in English local names, 
meaning " a height, a fortified 
height," 124, 187, 291, 541. 

Dunelm. See Durham. 

dunum, Celto-Latin root in the name 
of British and Gaulish forts, 124, 
541. 

Dunholm. See Durham. 

dur. See dwr. 

Durham, 191. 

Durotriges, II ; their commerce and 
general civilization, 12. 

Dutch, origin of the name, 67 ; Low 
Dutch, 91, 92, 93, 167 ; the ancient 
Low Dutch the national speech of 
the Salian Franks and of the people of 
Kent, 68, 107 ; specimens of Modern 
Dutch, 94, 165 ; Dutch and English 
compared, 165, 166 ; words which 
Dutch' and English have in common, 
398-400, 430-440 ; High Dutch, Old 
High Dutch, 91. 

Dwellings, ancient British, 6. 

dwr, Celtic root in English and French 
river names, meaning " water," 120, 

541. 

Dykes, in Holland, 74, 189 ; English 
local names derived from, 190. 

Easter, 109. 
Eating crow, 31. 
Eburacum (York), 44. 
Eburones, 75. 

Edda, the poetic and the prose, 93. 
Education, 55, 117, 137, 138, 157-164, 
198, 210, 246-249, 330, 486-490, 5:3, 

524, 525- 
Edward the Confessor, 20 ; his long 
residence among the Normans, 199, 
213; his election to the English 
throne, 214 ; his re-establishment of 



646 



INDEX. 



the Old English laws, 215 ; his Nor- 
man favorites, 216 ; his reception of 
Duke William of Normandy, 217 ; 
his apprehensions as regard the lat- 
ter's ambitious designs, 221 ; his 
death, 222. 

Edward III, 260, 286. 

Egbert, 140, 142. 

Eginhard, 486. 

Elizabethan Age, 365, 366. 

em, en. See ham. 

Enameling, art of, known among the 
Ancient Britons, 35. 

England. See Britain, Gaels, Gauls, 
Roman Conquest of Britain, Angh- 
Saxons. All tribal denominations 
abolished by Egbert, and the names 
of England and English for the 
country and its inhabitants pro- 
claimed by royal decree, 140, 141 ; 
probable reasons for the measure, 
142 ; Danish invasions of, see 
Danes; Norman conquest of, 
2 14-25 1. 

English language, the, 366, 376 ; 
classified as a member of the Low- 
Dutch division of the Teutonic 
languages, 370 ; reasons for this 
classification, 370, 371 ; character 
of the language in its earliest 
form, 347 ; difference between the 
spoken and written languages in the 
seventh and eighth centuries, 347, 

348 ; the written language an anti- 
quated conglomerate of various Teu- 
tonic dialects, 167 ; dialectic differ- 
ences involving grammatical inaccu- 
racies, 348, 352 ; great license of lan- 
guage and of spelling found in Anglo- 
Saxon writings, 352 ; Anglo-Saxon 
grammar, 168, 350, 353-356 ; Anglo- 
Saxon literature, 169 ; specimens of 
Anglo-Saxon language, 64, 157, 170, 
l-lT-y 383-386 ; origin and meaning of 
the term Anglo-Saxon, 371-373 ; Cel- 
tic influences, 118, 126, 127, 137, 138, 
139 ; they are more literary than lexi- 
cal, 117 ; Danish influences, 151, 152, 

155,170, 196, 348, 349, 351; infu- 
sion of Danish words and phrases, 174, 

349 ; the intermingling of English 
and Scandinavian dialects destruc- 
tive to the ancient forms of grammar, 
348 ; the Danish mode of laying the 
accent on or near the initial syllable 
causes the concluding syllable to fall 
into obscurity, and involves the loss 
of inflections, 349 ; the use of prepo- 
sitions in combination with inflec- 



tions a common practice found even 
in writing before the Norman con- 
quest, 35c ; Norman influences, 252- 
268 ; the infusion of French words 
and phrases begins immediately 
after the Norman conquest, 296 ; a 
smattering of French becomes a ne- 
cessity to all in direct contact with 
the Normans, 255, 296 ; the teach- 
ers are all French monks and clergy- 
men, and the only languages taught 
are French and Latin, 247, 253, 254, 
298 ; widespread disintegration of 
the native language after the genera- 
tion who had seen the arrival of the 
Normans had died out, 321 ; the his- 
tory of the vernacular English al- 
most a blank for a century and a 
half after the Norman conquest, 
292 ; changes in the language when 
it reappears in written form, 294 ; 
the ancient style of writing English 
is lost and obsolete, and the new 
language represents the various dia- 
lects as spoken in different parts of 
the country, 351, 352 ; French words 
begin more and more to obtrude 
themselves, 336-339 ; after the loss 
of Normandy, the blending of fami- 
lies and interests leads to the blend- 
ing of idioms, 322 ; influences which 
tend to that result, 324 ; business 
and fashion, 325 ; the clergy, 326- 
329; the university, 330, 331; the 
knight, 332 ; the lawyer, 332 ; the 
literature of translation especially 
introduces many French words and 
phrases, 334, 335 ; during the four- 
teenth century the mixed language 
becomes of general use, 336-339 ; in 
1362 Edward III authorizes the use 
of English as then current in the 
trial of civil suits, 260 ; the new lan- 
guage begins to be taught in the 
schools, 263, 342 ; the language of 
Chaucer, 339-342 ; difference be- 
tween words of Norman origin and 
French words of later introduction, 
346 ; changes which mark the trans- 
formation of the old speech of Eng- 
land into Modern English, 353-356; 
diversity of speech corresponding to 
differences of race and of locality, 
126, 197, 266, 325, 335, 343, 348, 
358 ; the introduction of the art of 
printing leads to a greater uniform- 
ity of language, 360 ; influence of 
the Renaissance and the Reforma- 
tion, 362-365 ; French controversial 



INDEX. 



647 



pamphlets, translated into English, 
lead to an increased use of foreign 
terms, 366 ; the excessive use of 
French and Latin terms condemned 
by the best English writers, 367, 
368 ; the Teutonic character of the 
English language but little affected 
by the vast number of foreign terms 
in its vocabulary, 371-376. 

English local and family names. See 
Names. 

English and French verses mixed, 283 ; 
English, French, and Latin verses 
mixed, 284, 285 ; English and Latin 
verses mixed, 428. 

Eostre, Anglican goddess, 109. 

Erasmus, 364. 

Erigena (Scotus), 138, 246. 

Erin, 4. 

Erroneous use of the term "Anglo- 
Saxon " to designate Modern Eng- 
lish, 371, 372 ; of the term " Latin " 
to designate Anglo-Norman-French, 

373, 374- 
esk, Celtic root in English and French 
river names, meaning " water," 121, 

541- 

Ethnological map of the British Isles, 
opposite 196. 

Etruscans, 457. 

Estienne, Henri, 510, 512. 

etan, Euskarian suffix in local names, 
meaning " a district, a country," 2. 

Ethelbert, king of Kent, 107 ; con- 
verted to Christianity, 108. 

Etymology, philology, linguistics, 517- 

519- 

Etymological dictionaries, 166, 455, 
526. 

Euskarian origin of the name of" Brit- 
ain," 2. 

Evrard, 277. 

ey, Norse root in English and French 
local names, meaning " an island," 
177, 550. 

Fac-simile of the first page of a manu- 
script of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle 
preserved in the British Museum, 

' 3S3. 
Fac-simile of a manuscript of the Oaths 

at Strasburg, A. D. 842, preserved in 

the Vatican Library at Rome, 601. 
Fair and dark races in Ireland and 

Scotland, 15, 16. 
Farming among the British Gauls, 10; 

among the Anglo-Saxons, 102. 
Fens, 5, 189. 
Feru-Bolg. See Fir-Bolgs. 



field, Teutonic suffix in English local 
names, 188. 

Filial and original Anglo-Saxon set- 
tlements, 192. 

Finn Mac Cumhal, Irish stories of, 26. 

Finnish tribes in Britain, 16 ; their 
physical appearance, 19 ; their peace- 
ful relations and incorporation with 
the earlier occupants of the island, 
19 ; probable influence of their lan- 
guage upon the British Celtic, 20. 

Fir-Bolgs, 15, 315. 

Fish, local names and surnames de- 
rived from, 309. 

Flanders, emigrants from, into Britain, 

5, 7i. 

Flemish dialect, 92 ; colony in Pem- 
brokeshire, 182. 

fleet, suffix in English local names, in 
Dutch, vliet, in Norse, fliot, mean- 
ing "a flow of water, a small 
stream," 550. 

fleur, French suffix in local names, 
550. 

fold, Teutonic suffix in English local 
names, meaning* " a stall," 187. 

force, Norse suffix in English local 
names, meaning "a waterfall," 178. 

Fords, English local names derived 
from, 130, 175, 182. 

Forest, 319. 

France, Roman conquest of Gaul, 459 ; 
Gaul under Roman rule, 460-462, 
473 ; foreign military colonies in the 
north of Gaul, 466 ; Burgundian, 
Frankish, and Visigothic invasions, 
467 ; the Frankish conquest of Gaul, 
470 ; the name of Franks gradually 
supersedes that of Gauls, or Gallo- 
Romans, and the name of France 
that of Gaul, 481 ; dismemberment 
of the empire of Charlemagne, 484 ; 
the new kingdom of France, 484, 

485. 

Francis I, 5 II 

Franciscans, 326, 327, 425. 

Franconia, 194. 

Franks, 467 ; not known to either 
Caesar or Tacitus, 76 ; first heard of 
in 241 A. D., 76 ; their physical ap- 
pearance, 77 ; their institutions and 
equipments of war, 77 ; Salian 
Franks, 76, 79, 80, 193, 194, 47° ; 
Ripuarian Franks, 76, 470 ; Ostra- 
sian Franks, 470,477,481, 482 ; then- 
expeditions with the Saxons against 
Britain and down the coasts of Gaul, 
76 ; Franks in Roman Britain, 46, 
47. 5 2 > 77> J 93 \ ^ ieir conquest of 



648 



INDEX. 



Gaul, 76, 469-471 ; they gradually 
take the manners and language of 
the conquered Gauls, 470 ; Latin 
Franks and Teutonic Franks, 481 ; 
the name of Franks gradually su- 
persedes that of Gauls throughout 
all their dominions, 481 ; Franks 
and Romans compared, 472, 473. 

French language, the, 457 ; it origi- 
nates in the Roman Conquest of 
Gaul, which see ; Gaul becomes a 
Roman province, 459 ; spread of 
Latin throughout Gaul, 460-463 ; 
Latin schools and Gallic-Latin au- 
thors, 462 ; the establishment of 
Christianity assists in spreading the 
Latin language, 464 ; difference be- 
tween spoken and written Latin, 
see Latin; the former, in its vari- 
ous dialects, becomes still more 
mixed among the Celts of Gaul, 
463-466 ; the Teutonic invasions, 
467-473 ; the mixture of Teutonic 
dialects with those current in Gaul 
produces a jargon of which Latin is 
the base, and which, variously com- 
bined in various localities, becomes 
the popular speech of Gaul under 
the name of Lingua Romana Rus- 
tica, 474, 475 ; the Church sees its 
importance and prescribes its use in 
the pulpit, 475, 476 ; the term Ro- 
mance, 477 ; fragments of early ro- 
mance, 478, 479 ; Oath of Louis the 
German, 480, 600-602 ; it represents 
the language of Neustria in 842 A. D., 
480 ; the Langue a" oil and the Lan- 
gue a"oc, 493, 494 ; principal dialects 
of the Langue d'oil, 495 ; the dialect 
of the lie de France prevails as the 
national idiom, 496-498 ; Mediaeval 
French, 500 ; the revival of learn- 
ing, 504-508 ; the exclusive use of 
French in public and private trans- 
actions prescribed by royal decree, 
1539 A. D., 506; the Renaissance, 
508 ; the Reformation, 509 ; the 
Academie Fiancaise, 514, 515. 

Foreign influences in the formation of 
the French vocabulary : The Celtic 
influence, 462-466, 542 ; common 
names of Celtic origin, 532-539 ; 
Celtic local names, 540-542 ; the 
Teutonic influence, 466-476, 543 ; 
common names of Teutonic origin, 
545, 546 ; Teutonic local names, 193, 
195, 548 ; Scandinavian local names, 
549-551 ; the Italian influence, 511 ; 
common names of Italian origin, 



556, 557 ; the Spanish influence, 512 ; 
common names of Spanish origin, 
557 ; Greek words and phrases, 
55 I- 555 I words of Semitic origin, 
555, 556 ; words borrowed from mod- 
ern German, 547, 548 ; words from 
English sources, 557, 558 ; tendency 
of the French language not to retain 
words of modern foreign origin in 
its vocabulary, 559 ; the main bulk 
of its vocabulary and its leading 
features derived from the Latin, 559, 
563-566 ; gradual changes which 
mark the transformation of Latin 
into French, 565-577 ; the article, 
566, 567 ; the noun, 567 ; the ad- 
jective, 568; the verb, 569, 570; 
the adverb, 571 ; the prepositions a 
and de, 569 ; quantity and accent, 
573-576 ; list of words illustrating 
the transformation of Latin terms 
into French, 578-589 ; principal 
characteristics of the French lan- 
guage, 590, 591. 

Friars, Augustine, Carmelite, Domini- 
can, Franciscan, 425. 

Friesians, 74, 75, 77-83 ; they origi- 
nally occupy the entire coast from 
the Scheldt to Denmark, 77, 78 ; in 
the third century they form a con- 
federacy with the Chauci, and yield 
the southern part of Holland to the 
Franks, 79 ; their love of independ- 
ence, 78 ; their dialect, 92, 164, 165 ; 
their early settlements in Yorkshire, 
96, 190. 

Frisia minor, 78. 

Frisiavoni, 78. 

Froissart, Jehan, 532, 620-622. 

Frontinus, 41. 

Fruit, surnames derived from, 308. 

Futhorc, 132. 

Gaels, Gadhels, Gwyddyls, I, 4, 11 ; 
their settlements in western and 
northern Britain, 13-16 ; their lan- 
guage, 21 ; their religion, 26, 27 ; 
their human sacrifices, 29. 

Gaimar, Geoffroi, 274, 323, 382. 

Galatia, Celtic idiom of, 21, 457, 464. 

Gastronomy, old English, 447. 

Gaul, Reman conquest of, 459-463 ; 
Frankish conquest of, 469-475. 

Gauls, 457-459 ; their early settle- 
ments in Britain, 4 ; their state of 
civilization, 6 ; their dwellings, 6 ; a 
chief's house, 6 ; their physical ap- 
pearance, dress, and ornaments, 7 ; 
equipment in war and in peace, 8, 



INDEX. 



649 



9 ; agriculture, horses, cattle, 10 ; 
domestic life, 10 ; their mode of 
reckoning time, 27 ; their religion 
and human sacrifices, 27-29 ; their 
arts, 35 ; their commerce and silver 
coinage, 36 ; their condition under 
Roman rule, 38-49 ; their final in- 
dependence, 54 ; later dissensions 
between Gauls and Cambrians, 57. 

garth, Norse root in English and 
French local names, meaning " an 
inclosure," 186, 549. 

garw, Welsh root in English river 
names, meaning " rough," 122. 

Gauter de Bibblesworthe, his Anglo- 
Norman grammar, 282. 

Genesis and Exodus, version of, 403, 

Geoffroy of Monmouth, his fabulous 
account of the origin of the English 
conquest, 70. 

Gerefa, 77, 103. 

German auxiliaries in the Roman ar- 
mies, 36, 43, 48. 

German, 91, 94 ; modern German 
words in the French vocabulary to 
be distinguished from the old Teu- 
tonic of the Franks, 546-548. 

Gerontius, treason of, 54. 

Gibbon, the vast amount of foreign 
terms used by, 368, 369. 

Gildas, 59 ; his account of the Saxon 
invasions of Britain, 61-63. 

gill, Norse roots in English local names, 
meaning " a ravine," 178. 

Godwin, father of Edith, queen of Ed- 
ward the Confessor, 214, 217. 

Gothic stock of languages, 91. 

Goths, 89, 468. 

Gower, John, 288,339, 4 28 , 4 2 9- 

Grammar, Anglo-Saxon, 168, 350, 353— 
356 ; as taught in the Middle Ages, 
161, 486-490 ; grammar schools, 163. 

Gratian, 53, 552. 

Gregory the Great, Pope, 105 ; sends 
Augustin as a missionary to Britain, 
106 ; his curious letter of introduc- 
tion to the Frankish kings Theode- 
bert and Theodoric, 106 ; his views 
on Latin grammar, 478. 

Gossamer, 185. 

Greek colony of Massilia (Marseille), 
457, 459, 55 1 ; ancient Greek dia- 
lects, 497, 498 ; French words and 
phrases derived from the Greek, 551- 

555- 
Guanacum, 7. 
Guichard de Beaulieu, 278. 
Guienne, 484. 
Guillaume Herman, 277. 
43 



Guorteyrn, British Chief of Chiefs, 58 ; 

his enlistment of foreign soldiers as 

auxiliaries, 59, 97. 
Gu thrum, 154, 180. 
gwy or ivy, Welsh root in English river 

names, meaning " water," 121. 

Hadrian, summoned to Britain, 42 ; 
his campaigns, 43, 44. 

Hadrian's wall, 45 ; its course still 
traceable by local names, 131. 

Halleluia victory, 58. 

ham, Teutonic root in English, French, 
West-German, Friesian, Dutch, and 
Belgian local names, meaning "an 
inclosure," 190; its modified forms 
are hem, heem, heim, home, han, hen, 
am, em, en, om, um, 190, 191, 193, 
474, 548. 

Hame, Hameau, Hamel, Hamelet, 
190, 474. 

Hampole, Richard, 337, 407-409. 
i Harald Harfager, 147, 201. 
J Hares, superstition about, 30. 
' Harold, son of Godwin, and brother- 
in-law to King Edward the Con- 
fessor, 217 ; his visit to Normandy, 
218 ; honor paid him by Duke Will- 
iam, 218 ; he accedes to the duke's 
request as regards the English suc- 
cession, 219 ; he promises to assist 
him in his claim, and swears his oath 
on sacred relics, 220 ; his account of 
the occurrence causes great uneasi- 
ness to King Edward, 221 ; on the 
king's death, Harold is elected and 
anointed King of England, 222 ; 
he repudiates his promise and his 
oath, 223 ; Duke William declares 
war, 224 ; battle of Hastings, 226- 
228 ; death of Harold, 228. 

Hastings, the sea-king, 484. 

Hastings, battle of, 226-228. 

haugh, haughr, Norse root in English 
and French local names, meaning 
" a sepulchral mound," 178, 551. 

hausen, Westphalian suffix in local and 
patronymic names, 194, 195. 

Havelock, the Dane, 404, 405. 

Hay ward, 188. 

Heathen songs crowded out by stirring 
Christian hymns, 109. 

Heathen survivals in Brittany, Scot- 
land, and Ireland, 18, 27, 29, 209, 

533, 534- 
Hedging and tining, 185. 
heem. See ham. 
Hel, Anglo-Saxon deity, 112. 
Heliand, 93. 



650 



INDEX. 



hem, hen. See ham. 

Hengist and Horsa, 60 ; legends of, 

68-70. 
Henry I, 247, 273. 
Henry the Fowler, 481. 
Henry VIII, 126, 266. 
Hermanduri, 81, 82. 
Heruli, 83. 
Hibernia, called indifferently " Scotia " 

by the Romans, 43. 
High Dutch, 91-93. 
Highlands, Scottish, traces of pre-his- 

toric tribes in the, 16 ; relics of the 

Old Druidic creed in the, 29 ; sur- 
names, 317. 
Hills, Celtic names of, in England, 123, 

124. 
Historical information derived from 

local names, 119. 
Hlodowig. See Clovis. 
Holderness, Friesian settlement in, 

96. 
Holland, 73"75- 
holm, Swedish root in English and 

French local names, meaning " an 

island," 177, 550. 
holt, Norse root in English and French 

local names, meaning "wood, for- 
ests," 178, 551. 
Home. See ham. 
Honorians, 52. 
Honorius releases the British from 

their allegiance, 54. 
Hooker, 366. 
Horses, British, 10. 
Howard. See Hayward. 
hurst, Anglo-Saxon root in English 

local names, meaning " the depths of 

the forest," 188. 
Hrocus. See Crocus. 
Hrolf. See Rollo. 
Hugh Capet, 491, 498. 
Hugh the Mighty, legend of, 25, 26. 
Hume, 368. 

Hundred, hundred court, 103. 
Hustings, 183. 
Hygden, 253, 263, 266, 358. 
Hymn to the Virgin, in French and 

Latin mixed, 284. 

Iberians, 2, 15, 457. 

Iceni, the revolt of the, 39. 

Identity of local and patronymic names 
in England and the opposite shores of 
Continental Europe, showing iden- 
tity of race, 193-195. 55*. 

igny, French suffix in local and patro- 
nymic names, corresponding to the 
English ingham, ington, 195. 



He de France, 495 ; dialect of the, 
496. 

Immigration into Britain, Saxon, an 
immigration of clans and tribes, 
191 ; Scandinavian, an immigration 
of soldiers of fortune, 192. 

Immutability of local names, 119. 

Inclosures, Celtic names denoting, 
125 ; Saxon names denoting, 186, 
187. 

Inflections, 347-350, 568. 

Influence of Druidism on the litera- 
ture of romance, 25. 

ing, Teutonic suffix indicating family 
relation, 191, 192, 468, 548. 

ingem, ingen, ingham, ing hem, ing- 
heim, Teutonic suffixes composed 
of ing and ham, which see. 

Institutions, Frankish, 76, 77 ; Anglo- 
Saxon, 102, 105. 

Insula Batavorum, 75, 78. 

Iona, Culdees of, 117. 

Ireland, dark-complexioned races in, 
15 ; traces of ancient paganism in, 
29 ; once the chief seat of learning in 
Christian Europe, 137 ; Celtic local 

< names in, 1 19-125 ; Norse local 
names in, 182. 

Irish language, 21 ; alphabet, 139 ; 
early Anglo-Saxon writing formed 
after the Irish model, 138, 139 ; 
missionaries, 108, 125 ; schools, 
137 ; scholars, 138 ; legends, 15, 25, 
32 ; bards, 15 ; family names, 315- 

317. 
Iron Age, 16. 
Isis, worship of, 50. 
Isle of Thanet, 61, 107. 
Isle of Thorney, 177. 
Isle of Wight, 5, 47, 121. 
Isurium, 44. 
Italian, words of, origin in the French 

vocabulary, 556, 557. 

Jack and Jill, origin of the legend of, 

185. 
Jeffroi de Villehardouin, 618. 
Johnson, Samuel, 366. 
Joinville, Jehan de, 522, 619, 620. 
Judith, Anglo-Saxon poem, 114. 
Jutes, 65 ; doubtful origin of the name, 

66, 68. 
Jutland, various names of, 86. 

Kent, Gaulish kingdom of, 5 ; Franks 
in, 47, 77 ; ancient laws of, 68 ; 
Ethelbert, king of, 107 ; Christianity 
preached first in, 108, 117 ; Weald 
of, 188. 



INDEX. 



6 5 I 



kil, Gaelic root in Irish and Scotch 
local names, meaning " a hermit's 
cell, a church," 125. 

kirk, Norse root, meaning " a church," 
178, 179, 188. 

Knave, 466, 572. 

Knight, 218. 

Lasti, Roman colonists in northern 
Germany, 194, 207, 466. 

Lai de Aveloc, le, 404. 

Lake district, the, peopled by Celts and 
Norwegians, 181. 

Lake-dwellers, 2. 

Land of Cockaigne, 336. 

Lanfranc, 210, 247. 

Lang-barta, 196. 

Langland, William, 337, 358, 412-415. 

Langtoft, Peter, 289. 

Langue d'oc, 280, 492, 493. 

Langue d'oil, 492, 493 ; principal dia- 
lects of the, 495. 

Latin language, the, 559-578; its uni- 
versality and vitality, 465, 500 ; 
early monuments of the, 500 ; di- 
versity of speech among the ancient 
Romans, 562, 563 ; difference be- 
tween classical and popular Latin, 
559, 56i, 565, 566, 529. Remarks on 
Latin pronunciation by ancient and 
modern writers, 564, 565 ; ce, 560 ; 
au, 578 ; ei, 595 ; ce, 575 ; c, 578-580 ; 
gy 589 ; h, 587 ; /. 588 ; final m, 582 ; 
qu, 589 ; initial s, 582 ; final s, 577 ; 
initial v, 587 ; medial v, 581. Me- 
diaeval and ecclesiastical Latin, 474- 
478, 521, 569, 576, 578. Low Lat- 
in, 572. 

La3amon, 393-395. 

Laurence Minot, 409-412. 

Laws of Edward, 204, 235, 272. 

Laws of William the Conqueror, 236, 
237, 258, 270-273. 

Lawtings, 183. 

lea. See high. 

Legends, Irish, 15, 32 ; Welsh, 25, 26 ; 
of Finn Mack Cumhal, 26 ; of Hugh 
the Mighty, 25 ; of Hengist and 
Horsa, 68-70 ; of Jack and Jill, 184 ; 
ofWaylandsmith, 182 ; of Old Nick 
and Old Scratch, 183 ; of pretended 
descent from animals, 31. 

Legion, constitution of a Roman, 43. 

high, lea, ley, Anglo-Saxon roots in 
English local names, meaning " an 
open forest-glade," 188. 

Ligurians, 457. 

Lingua di si, 493. 

Lingua Romana Rustica, 294, 352, 475. 



Linguistics, 517-529. 

Litus Saxonum, 49, 73, 96. 

Livre des Rois, 607. 

llan, Welsh root, meaning " an inclos- 
ure, a sacred inclosure, a church," 
125, 187. 

llevn, Gaelic root in river-names, mean- 
ing "smooth," 122. 

Local names, always significant, 119 ; 
their antiquity and vitality, 118 ; 
their value in historical investiga- 
tions, 119. See Names. 

Logrians, 2, 4, 5. 

Lombardians, 80, 81, 82, 196. 

London, 124, 128 ; sacked by the Ro- 
mans, 40 ; by the Franks, 47 ; taken 
by the Saxons, 52 ; besieged by the 
Danes, 180. 

Lord's Prayer, the, in Anglo-Saxon, 
385 ; in Anglo-Danish, 386 ; in Old 
English, 386 ; from a psalter of 
William the Conqueror, 270 ; in 
twelfth century French, 612. 

Lorris, Guillaume de, 614, 615. 

Louis the German, 480, 600. 

Louis the Pious, 482, 486. 

Low Dutch, 91-93, 165-167, 386, 398- 
400, 430-440. 

Loyal Serviteur, Le, 632, 633. 

Lutetia Parisiorum (Paris), 35. 

Lydgate, John, 340, 361, 443, 444. 

lynn, Gaelic root, meaning "a deep, 
still pool," 122. 

Mac, Scotch and Irish prefix in family 
names, 315-317. 

magh, Erse root, meaning " a plain, a 
field," 125. 

Maister of Oxford's catechism, the, 
444-446. 

Malherbe, Francois de, 510, 512. 

man, Celtic root, meaning" a district," 
125. 

Man, the Isle of, 181 ; dialect of, 22 ; 
Norwegian names in, 18 1 ; the Norse 
thing still retained there, 183. 

Manant, 485. 

Manning, Robert, 337, 407. 

Manx dialect, 22. 

Maps, blank geographical, of Britain 
and neighboring countries, 33 ; eth- 
nological, of the British Isles, oppo- 
site 196. 

Mara, Norse demon, 185. 

Marco Polo, 502. 

Marcomanni, 143. 

Marguerite de Navarre, 509. 

Marie de France, 209, 281. 

Marot, Clement, 509, 530, 625, 628. 



652 



INDEX. 



Martini da Canale, 502. 

Massilia (Marseilles), 457, 459, 493, 

551, 553. 

Mataris, 9. 

Matrass, 537. 

Maundeville, Sir John, 358, 415-418, 
502. 

Maurice de Sully, 609-612. 

mawr, mor, more, Welsh roots, mean- 
ing "great," 125. 

Maximian, 47. 

Maximus, revolt of, 53. 

Meeting, 183. 

Mella, Scandinavian deity, 183. 

Menapii, 71, 72. 

mere, meer, maer, Teutonic suffixes in 
English local names, meaning "a 
lake," 189. 

Merovingian Latin, 473, 474, 521, 569. 

Merowings, 468. 

Metals and mining in Britain, 36. 

Metals, surnames derived from, 309. 

Metempsychosis in Druidism, 28, 30. 

Meung, Jehan de, 615, 616. 

Mile, 131, 531. 

Milton, 366. 

Minerals, surnames derived from, 309. 

Miscellanea ; Anglo-Norman, 290; Old 
English, 4477450. 

Misnomers arising from misconception, 

344, 347- 

Mispronunciation of words of foreign 
origin, 345, 346. 

Missionaries, Roman, 106 ; Irish, 108, 
137 ; Welsh, 117. 

Mithra and Mithraism, 51. 

Moeso-Gothic, 89; alphabet, 133 ; speci- 
men of, 90. 

Mona, the Druids of, 29. 

Mons Badonicus. See Badon. 

Montaigne, Michel de, 635, 636. 

More, Sir Thomas, 364. 

Mountains in England, Celtic names 
of, 123, 124. 

Mythical ancestors, names derived 
from, 31. 

Mythology, Celtic, 25-30. 

Names, originally always significant, 
never arbitrary sounds, 119. Local 
names in England : Celtic, 1 19-125 ; 
Roman, 128-13 1 ; Anglo-Saxon, 
185-192 ; Scandinavian, 174-183 ; 
Norman, 318-320. Hereditary sur- 
names : Roman, 303 ; Anglo-Saxon, 

191, 192, 304, 305 ; Anglo-Danish, 

192, 314 ; Anglo-Norman, 301, 306, 
307, 312, 313, 317, 318 ; after the 
Norman conquest the English peo- 



ple adopt French Christian names, 
300, 301 ; English family names de- 
rived from Christian names, 302 ; 
from landed estates, 306 ; from local 
names, 307 ; from trees, shrubs, and 
plants, 308 ; from animals, 308 ; 
from birds, 309 ; from fishes, 309 ; 
from minerals, 309 ; from crafts no 
longer existing, 309; from trades 
and occupations, 310, 311 ; from im- 
aginary offices and attributes, 312 ; 
from traits, manners, and bodily pe- 
culiarities, 318 ; the particles afcand 
le in Norman names, 307 ; ap in 
Welsh names, 314 ; 0" and Mac in 
Irish names ; 315, 316 ; Mac in 
Scotch names, 317 ; Norman names 
in Scotland, 318; many local and 
family names are identical on both 
sides of the English Channel, 193- 
I95 ; 

Nangis, Guillaume de, 502. 

nant, Cymric root in English local 
names, meaning " a valley," 125. 

naze, ness, Norse suffixes in English 
local names, meaning " a nose, a 
promontory, a headland," 178, 180. 

Nennius ; his account of the Saxon in- 
vasions of Britain, 59, 60. 

Neolithic tribes in Britain, 16, 17 ; 
their physical appearance, 18 ; their 
tombs, 18 ; at one time alone in pos- 
session of Britain, 19 ; invaded by 
Finnish tribes, 19. 

Neustria, 470, 475, 480. 

nez, French suffix meaning " headland, 
a cape," 178. 

Nicholas de Guildford, 404. 

Nicknames, common among the early 
Germans, 67, 69. 

Nightmare, 165. 

Nikr, a Scandinavian water-demon, 
184. 

Norman conquest of England, origin 
of the, see Edward the Confessor, 
and Harold ; Battle of Hastings, 
226-229 ; immediate results of the 
conquest, 229 ; coronation of Duke 
William as King of England, 230 ; 
confiscation of private property and 
seizure of English domains, 231 ; 
great wealth and high titles be- 
stowed on William's followers, 232 ; 
fearful sufferings of the native Eng- 
lish, 233 ; great influx of French 
adventurers, 234 ; final disposal of 
all landed property, 239, 240 ; the 
Domesday -book, 241 ; general aspect 
of the conquered country, 242, 243 ; 



INDEX. 



653 



eventual benefits derived from the 
conquest, 246 ; Norman activity on 
the cause of education, 247 ■; estab- 
lishment of schools and institutions 
of learning, 247 ; rich endowments 
for their maintenance, 248 ; estab- 
lishment of abbeys and monasteries, 
and erection of magnificent edifices, 
249 ; improvement in agriculture 
and extension of commerce, 250. 

Norman French, 252 ; as a vernacular 
idiom, a distinction of race in Eng- 
land for many generations, 253-255 ; 
for a century and a half after the 
Norman conquest, the only current 
literature in England, 292 ; the great 
mass of early French literature was 
produced in England, 293 ; the in- 
fusion of French words began be- 
fore the Norman conquest, 295 ; 
after the conquest a knowledge of 
French becomes a general necessity, 
255, 296 ; the first degeneration of 
Anglo-Norman French observable 
in an admixture of English words, 
and in the loss of accent, 257 ; Eng- 
lish words occur in the laws of Will- 
iam, and are quite numerous in the 
statutes at large, 258-260 ; the sep- 
aration of Normandy from England 
the main cause of the decline of 
Anglo-Norman French, 261 ; native 
English poets begin to write French 
poetry, 262 ; the best French works 
are all translated into early English, 
and the familiar use of French be- 
comes more and more confined to 
the court and the aristocracy, 262, 
263 ; it remains for a long time the 
official language of the high court 
of Parliament, and of the courts of 
chivalry, 264 ; lawyers' French of 
the period, 264, 265 ; the first Eng- 
lish bill in the House of Commons 
bears date A. D. 1485, 266 ; the last 
public document in French bears 
date A. D. 1488, 266 ; Henry VIII 
the last English king who proclaims 
French the court lauguage, 266 ; 
the first French grammar was writ- 
ten under his auspices, and published 
in England A. d. 1530, 267 ; the first 
French-English dictionary was pub- 
lished also in England A. D. 161 1, 
267 ; the royal assent to acts of Par- 
liament is still given in French, 267. 

Norman family names in England. 
300-302, 305-307, 312, 313 ; in Scot- 
land, 317, 318 ; local names, 318- 



320 ; Norman proverbs still current 
in English, 290. 

Normandy, 203-208 ; the principal 
center of religion and science in 
Europe during the tenth and elev- 
enth centuries, 209 ; its schools and 
religious foundations, 210. 

Normans, origin of the, 201, 202 ; their 
first invasion of Gaul, 483, 484 ; their 
conquest of Neustria, 486, 203-205 ; 
the, in Rollo's time, 206, 207 ; they 
become a French-speaking people, 
208, 210 ; the eighth-century Danes 
and the tenth-century Normans 
compared, 211 ; the, before and 
after their conversion to Christian- 
ity, 207, 208 ; their pagan super- 
stitions, 209 ; growth of Norman 
civilization, 210 ; their old spirit of 
war and adventure, 211 ; their na- 
tional characteristics, 205, 206, 212, 
252 ; long residence of Edward 
among them before his election to 
the English throne, 213. 

Norse local names ; in England, 174- 
180; in Scotland, 181 ; in Ireland, 
182 ; in the Hebrides, 181 ; in the 
Isle of Man, 181, 183 ; in Norman- 
dy. 549-55L 

Northumbrian gloss, 171. 

Notes of ownership, old English, 450. 

Notitia Imperii, 38, 45, 48, 51, 193, 
194, 207. 

Nursery tales, origin of many, 27, 29, 
185. 

0\ Irish prefix in family names, 315, 
316. 

Oath of Louis the German, 480, 600- 
602. 

Occleve, Thomas, 340, 442, 443. 

Odin, no. 

oe, Norse root in English and French 
local names, meaning "an island," 
177, 550. 

Ogham writing, 135. 

Old English homily, 386-392. 

Old Nick, 184. 

Old Scratch, 184. 

om. See ham. 

Opera Anglica, 197. 

Ordovices, 13. 

Original and filial Anglo-Saxon settle- 
ments, 192. 

Orkney, 177. 

Orleans, Charles d', 264, 622. 

Ormulum, 395-397. 

Ornaments, British, 7, 35 ; Anglo- 
Saxon, 197. 



654 



INDEX. 



Orthography, old English, 360, 361 ; 

old French, 592-600. 
Osiris, worship of, 51. 
Otlinga Saxonica, 207. 
Owl, the, and the nightingale, 404. 
Oxford University, 261, 330, 33T, 502, 

524, 579- 

Paganism, ancient British, 25 ; traces 
of, in Scotland and Ireland, 29 ; 
Saxon 109. 

Pagus, 103. 

Palaeolithic age, 26, 27. 

Palsgrave, French grammar, London 
(1530), 266, 494, 495. 

Pantheistic religions in Britain, 50. 

Paris University, 330, 331, 502, 524. 

Parisii, 35, 96. 

Park, 1 1 8. 

Patois as distinguished from " dialect," 
497-499. 

Paulinus, his missionary efforts in 
Northumbria, 108. 

Paullinus, Suetonius, his campaigns 
against the revolted British, 39 ; his 
victories, no; his overbearing con- 
duct and recall, 41. 

pen, Welsh root in mountain-names, 
meaning "head," 123. 

Pentuaria, 96. 

Peres the Ploughman's Crede, 422-426. 

Philip Augustus, 261, 280, 496, 498. 

Philology, 5I7-5I9- 

Phyrrica, 37. 

Physical features of the country, local 
names derived from, 119. 

Picts, 42 ; a Cymric tribe in Scotland, 
123, 317 ; origin of the name 42 ; 
their dialect extinct, 20 ; their hostile 
enterprises in concert with the Scots, 
43, 51, 52, 54, 57, 97, 

Picts' Wall, 44 ; Picts' houses in Scot- 
land, 15 ; Picts' house at Maeshowe, 

134- 

Piers Ploughman, 263, 413, 414. 

Plants, surnames derived from, 308. 

Platt-Deutsch, 92. 

Plautius, 38. 

Pleiade, the, 505-509. 

Poems, Welsh, 2, 25, 31, 59 ; Anglo- 
Saxon, 109-116. 

Political song, in French and English 
mixed, 283 ; in Latin, French, and 
English mixed, 284, 285. 

Pontifex, 129. 

Pope Gregory the Great, 105, 106, 478. 

Pope Gregory IX, 523. 

Population of England in Saxon times, 
186. 



port, Latin root in English local names, 

meaning " a harbor," 131. 
Pottery, British, 20. 
Prasutagus, 39. 
Prefix, a component element in Celtic 

local names, 124. 
Prehistoric tribes in Britain, 1, 15-20. 
Prepositions, 349, 350, 542, 548, 568, 

569. 
Presentment of Englishry, 238. 
Printing, the art of, 360, 365, 450, 

504. 
Provencal, 494. 
Provence, 484, 493. 
Proverbs, Norman, still current in 

England, 290. 
Provinces, division of Roman Britain 

into five, 48. 
Psalm i, verse 6, in twelfth, thirteenth, 

fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth 

century French, 503-606. 
Pugna Badonica, 61. 
pwll, Welsh root in local names, mean- 
ing " a pool," 124. 

Quadrivium, 161, 490. 
Quenes de B6thune, 496. 
Quiberon, 542., 

Rabelais, Francois, 509, 510, 628, 629. 

Rsedwald, his conversion to Chris- 
tianity, and characteristic compro- 
mise, 108. 

Raleigh, Walter, 366. 

Rambouillet, Madame de, 513, 514. 

rea, rhe, Gaelic roots in English local 
names, meaning "swift," 122. 

Receipts, old English, 449, 450. 

Reduplication of synonyms in English 
local names, 121. 

Reformation, the, in England, 365, 366 ; 
in France, 508, 509. 

Regnault de Coucy, 612. 

Reichenau glosses, 479. 

Remains of the Palaeolithic Age, 17 ; 
of the Neolithic Age, 17, 18 ; of the 
Bronze Age, 19, 20 ; of the wall of 
Hadrian, 45 ; Roman, in Britain, 50, 
101, 129. 

Remarks on the reading of ancient Eng- 
lish manuscripts, 377-381 ; of ancient 
French manuscripts, 592—600. 

Renaissance, the, in England, 364 ; in 
France, 503-508. 

Restoration, the, 367. 

Restrictions as to the killing or eating 
certain kinds of animals, 30, 31. 

Retroversion of the Celtic language, in 
England, 126 ; in France, 542. 



INDEX. 



655 



rhe. See rea. 

r/ios, Welsh root meaning "a moor," 
123. 

Richard Coeur-de-Lion, 279. 

Richelieu, Cardinal de, 514. 

River names in Great Britain, their an- 
tiquity and permanence, 119 ; chiefly 
of Celtic origin, 119-123. 

Robert-le-Diable, 217. 

Robert of Gloucester, 253, 340, 405, 
406. 

Robert Grosse-Teste, 281. 

Roger Asham, 364. 

Roger Guiscard, 211. 

Roger de Toesny, 210. 

Rollo, Roll, Rou, Hrolf, 202 ; his de- 
scent on French soil, 204 ; first Duke 
of Normandy, 205, 481, 486. 

Roman conquest of Britain, Caesar's 
invasion, 34 ; its results, 35 ; war 
with Caractacus, 36 ; invasion of 
Claudius, 36 ; his victory and tri- 
umph, 37 ; conquest of Southern 
Britain by Plautius, 38 ; wanton- 
ness of Roman tyranny, 38 ; revolt 
of Boadicea, 39 ; the Icenian mu- 
tiny, 39 ; Suetonius Paullinus, 40 ; 
sack of London, Verulam, and Ca- 
mulodunum, 40 ; total defeat of the 
Britons, 40 ; Agricola, 41 ; Hadrian, 
his campaign against the Caledo- 
nians, 43 ; development of camps 
into cities, 44 ; the Picts' wall, 45 ; 
expedition of Severus, 46 ; Carausius, 
46 ; Allectus, 47 ; Constantius, 48 ; 
accession and policy of Constan- 
tine, 48 ; division of Britain into five 
provinces, 48 ; general misery of the 
country, 49 ; establishment of Chris- 
tianity, 50 ; spread of pantheistic 
religions, 51 ; invasion of Picts and 
Scots in the north, and of Franks 
and Saxons in the south, 52 ; vic- 
tories of Theodosius, 52 ; revolt of 
Maximus, 53 ; Picts and Scots de- 
feated by Stilicho, 54 ; communica- 
tion with the empire cut off, 54 ; 
Constantine, the soldier, 54 ; threat- 
ening attack of Gerontius, 54 ; re- 
pelled by "the Cities," 54; inde- 
pendence of Britain, 54. 

Roman conquest of Gaul, 459-463. 

Roman local names in Britain, 128 ; 
roads, 129 ; camps and military sta- 
tions, 44, 130 ; walls and fortresses, 
44,45, 124, 131 ; legions, 43 ; schools, 

55- 
Romance, 477. 
Romania, 461. 



Ronsard, Pierre de, 365, 508-511, 565, 
629-631. 

ros, Gaelic root, meaning "a head- 
land," 124. 

Rou. See Rollo. 

Rouen, 204, 218. 

Runes, 131, 132 ; Gothic, Anglian, and 
Scandinavian, 133 ; where found, 
134 ; magic influences attributed to 
them, 136 ; their later uses and 
gradual disappearance, 137. 

Ruthwell Cross, 134. 

Saxon, derivation of the name, 79 ; 
character of Saxon colonization, 191 ; 
original and filial settlements, 192. 

Saxons, first mentioned by Ptolemy as 
a small tribe in Northern Germany, 
79 ; they gradually expand, and in- 
clude many other tribes, 79 ; all Teu- 
tonic immigrants into Britain called, 
by the Romans and the Britons, 73, 
193, 196 ; their national characteris- 
tics, 84, 87 ; their early naval expe- 
ditions in concert with the Franks 
against Britain and down the coast 
of Gaul, 80 ; their settlement near 
Bayeux, 80 ; their early settlements 
in Britain, 52, 71-73, 96 ; origin 
of the Anglo-Saxon invasions of 
Britain, 59 ; conflicting accounts 
thereof, 59 ; the Saxons slowly but 
steadily advance into the best parts 
of the island, 97 ; their treatment of 
the native Britons, 98, 104 ; their 
English homes, 101 ; their husband- 
ry, 102 ; their social and political 
organization, 102, 103 ; their nobles 
and their freemen, 103 ; their serfs 
and slaves, 103 - 105 ; their con- 
version to Christianity, 107 ; their 
frequent relapse into idolatry, 108 ; 
their festivals and heathen songs, 
109, no, 114 ; their tribal denomi- 
nations abolished, and the name of 
' ' English " substituted for the en- 
tire nation, 142. 

Scandinavian, character of, coloniza- 
tion, 192 ; branch of languages, 91 ; 
literature, 93 ; deities, 183 ; English 
common names of, origin, 174 ; Eng- 
lish local names of, origin, 175-T83 ; 
French local names of, origin, 549- 

551. 

Scotch-Gaelic dialect, 21. 

Scotia. See Hibernia. 

Scotland, its ancient division between 
the Scots and Picts, 42, 43 ; surviv- 
als of dark prehistoric races in, 16 ; 



656 



INDEX. 



of ancient Celtic paganism, 29 ; Cel- 
tic river names in, 120-123 ; Celtic 
mountain-names in, 123-125 ; Celtic 
surnames in, 317 ; Norman surnames 
in, 318. 

Scots, 42 ; their emigration from Ire- 
land, 43, 317 ; their warlike enter- 
prises in concert with the Picts, 43, 
51, 52, 54, 57, 97. 

Scotus Erigena, 138, 246. 

Scythed chariots, 9. 

Selago, superstition as to the medicinal 
virtues of, 534. 

Serapis, worship of, 50. 

Serfdom and slavery among the Sax- 
ons in England, 103-105. 

Serpent- worship, 17, 25. 

Settlements, original and filial Saxon, 
in England, 192 ; Saxon, near Ba- 
yeux, 80, 207, 208, 549 ; Friesian, in 
Yorkshire, 96, 190 ; Scandinavian, 
in England, 175-183. 

Severus, his unsuccessful campaigns in 
Britain, 46. 

Sheriff, 77, 103, 240. 

Shetlands, local names of Scandinavian 
origin in the, 181, 183. 

Shrubs, surnames derived from, 308. 

Sicambri, 75-77. 

Silurians, 13, 15, 16, 28, 4i. 

Skratti, a Norse demon, 184. 

Skulls, varieties of, in prehistoric tribes, 
18-20. 

Slave-mart in Rome, 105. 

Slavery among the Anglo - Saxons, 
105. 

Songs, national Teutonic, 99 ; heathen 
Saxon, 109 ; political old English, in 
two and three languages mixed, 283- 
285. 

Spanish, words of, origin in the French 
vocabulary, 557. 

Specimens of Anglo-Saxon, 64, 157, 
170, 171, 383, 386 ; of Anglo-Norman 
French, 269-291 ; of Early English, 
377-452 ; of Early French, 600-636. 

Spenser, 340, 365, 366. 

St. Adalhard, 497. 

St. Augustine, 460, 465, 478, 570, 587. 

St. Beanus, 31. 

St. Bernard, 608. 

St. Boniface, 159. 

St. Brendan, 31. 

St. Csesarius, 552, 

St. Columba, 29. 

St. Cuthbert, 139, 179. 

St. Cyprian, 553. 

St. Germanus, 58. 

St. Irenseus, 463, 552. 



St. Jerome, 457, 464, 465, 478, 555, 562, 
567, 572. 

St. Luke, chapter vii, v. 11-17 \ version 
of, in Scotch-Gaelic, 21 ; in Irish, 
21 ; in Welsh, 22 ; in Manx, 22 ; in 
Mceso-Gothic, 90 ; in Anglo-Saxon, 
170; in Northumbrian, 171; in 
Dutch, 94 ; in German, 94 ; in Dan- 
ish, 95 ; in Swedish, 95 ; in old Eng- 
lish, 338 ; in Brezonec, 543 ; in Fran- 
cic, 547 ; in French, 527 ; in Latin, 

171, 527. 

St. Lupus, 58. 

St. Monacella's lambs, 30. 

St. Mummolinus, 477. 

St. Patrick, 29. 

St. Prosper, 475. 

St. Remi, 469. 

Ste. Eulalie, Cantilene de, 500, 602- 
604. 

Stabat Mater, translation of the, into 
thirteenth-century French, 617. 

Standing stones, 17, 25. 

Statute of Edward III, authorizing the 
use of English in civil suits, 260, 
264, 286. 

Statutes at large, 259, 260. 

ster, Norse suffix, in Irish local names, 
meaning " a place, a location," 182. 

Stilicho, 54. 

stoke, Teutonic root in English local 
names, meaning " an inclosure," 
186. 

Stone, or Pre-metallic Age, 18. 

Strandhug, 202. 

Strathclyde, dialect of, extinct, 20. 

street, Latin root in English local 
names, 129. 

Studies that were cultivated in the time 
of Alfred and of Charlemagne, 161- 
163 ; to the end of the eleventh cent- 
ury, 486-490 ; university studies in 
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 
330, 331, 525- 

Suevi, 54, 75, 76, 81, 82. 

Suffix, a component element in Teu- 
tonic names, 124. 

Superstitions about cromlechs, 18, 25 ; 
dolmens, 17 ; Beltain fires, 29 ; runes, 
136 ; standing stones, 17 ; fairies, 18, 
26 ; mountain-dwarfs, 18, 26, 208 ; 
witches, 26, 29 ; invisible smiths, 
29 ; hares, 30 ; elves, 208 ; were- 
wolves, 208 ; hobgoblins, 209 ; Old 
Nick, 183 ; Old Scratch, 183 ; con- 
nected with Anglo-Saxon paganism, 
109 ; with Norman paganism, 209 ; 
as to the securing the medicinal vir- 
tues of certain plants, 533, 534 ; as 



INDEX. 



657 



to descent from animals, 32 ; totem- 
ism, 32. 

Surnames. See Names. 

Survivals of the prehistoric inhabitants 
of Britain, 16, 17 ; of Druidism in 
Ireland and Scotland, 29 ; of Saxon 
paganism in England, 109 ; of an- 
cient superstitions, see Superstitions. 

Swedish language, specimen of, 94, 95. 

Swift, 367, 369. 

Synonyms, Celtic and Teutonic, in the 
composition of certain English local 
names, 122. 

Tacitus ; on the original inhabitants 
of Britain, 5 ; on the British nations 
as enemies, 14 ; on the institutions 
of the early Germanic tribes, 103, 
87, 99. 

tarn, tan, tar, Welsh and Gaelic roots 
in English river-names, meaning 
" quiet, still," 122. 

Tartan, 7. 

Taylor, Jeremy, 367, 369. 

Templars, 319, 320. 

Teutonic ; branch of languages, 91, 
92 ; early, settlements in Britain, 
57, 71, 72 ; changes of Celtic names 
in England, 121, 122 ; local names 
of, origin in England, 185-196 ; lo- 
cal names of, origin in France, 193, 
195, 548 ; French common names 
of, origin, 545-548. 

Thanet, Isle of, 61, 107. 

Theodebert and Theodoric, kings of 
the Franks, 106 ; they hospitably re- 
ceive Augustin, and assist him in 
his mission to England, 107. 

Theodore of Tarsus, 138. 

Theodosius, 50 ; victories of, 52, 53. 

Theodulf, 486. 

Thibaut de Navarre, 613. 

Thing, name of the Scandinavian Par- 
liament, 183 ; the root of names of 
English localities once occupied by 
the Northmen, 183. 

Thong Castle, legend of, 70. 

Thor, thunor, no, 189, 209. 

Thoringi, Toringi, Thuringi, 82. 

thorpe, Danish suffix in English and 
French local names, meaning " a 
village," 176, 180, 550. 

Thrace, Celtic idioms of, 2T. 

thun, Dutch suffix in French local 
names, 193, corresponding to the 
English ton, which see. 

Thunor. See Thor. 

Thuringi. See Thoringi. 

thwaite, Norse suffix in English local 



names, meaning " a forest-clearing," 
176, 180, 549. 

Tiw, Norse demon, 184. 

toft, Danish suffix in English and 
French local names, meaning an 
" inclosure, a homestead," 176, 180, 
549- 

Tombs of the Neolithic Age, 18 ; of 
the Bronze Age, 19. 

ton, toun, tun, Anglo-Saxon suffixes 
in English local names, meaning 
" an inclosure," 102, 185, 186 ; sur- 
names exhibiting this suffix indicate 
Saxon descent, 182. 

Totemism ; extent of this superstition 
in ancient and modern times, 32. 

tourp, thorp, torp, tourbe, Dutch and 
Danish roots in French local names, 
meaning " a village," 550. See thorpe. 

Traveler's Song, the, 82, 92. 

ire, Cymric root, meaning " a town, a 
dwelling," 124. 

Trees, local and surnames derived from, 
308. 

Trevisa, John de, 253, 263, 266, 358, 
418, 419. 

Triads, 2 ; no authority in Celtic 
mythology, 25. 

Trinobantes, 5. 

Trivium and quadrivium, 16 1, 490, 
524- 

Tuatha De Danann, 42. 

Turf, 189. 

Ugrian tribes. See Finnish. 

uisge, Celtic root in English and French 

river-names, meaning " water," 120, 

541. 
Ulphilas, 69 ; his translation of the 

Bible into Moeso-Gothic, 90 ; Mceso- 

Gothic alphabet of, 133, 136. 
um, Friesian suffix in local names, 

meaning "an inclosure," 96, 190. 

See ham. 
Universality of the Latin language, 

465. 
University : of Cambridge, 330, 392, 

502, 579 ; of Oxford, 331, 502, 524, 

579 ; of Paris 330, 331, 502, 524. 
Usipetes, 75. 
Usquebaugh, 121. 
Uxellodunum, 459. 

Valens, 89. 
Valentianus, 80. 
Vandals, 54, 72. 
Vannes, 12, 62, 459. 
Varini, 66, 81. 
Varus, 81. 



658 



INDEX. 



Vaudeville, 623. 

Veneti, 12. 

Venta Belgarum (Winchester), 35. 

Version of Genesis and Exodus, 403. 

Version of St. Luke, chapter vii, verses 
11-17, in Scotch Gaelic, 21 ; in 
Irish, 21 ; in Welsh, 22 ; in Manx, 
22 ; in Mceso-Gothic, 90 ; in Anglo- 
Saxon, 170 ; in Northumbrian, 171 ; 
in German, 94 ; in Dutch, 94 ; in 
Danish, 95 ; in Swedish, 95 ; in Old 
English, 338 ; in Brezonec, 543 ; in 
Francic, 547 ; in French, 527 ; in 
Latin, 171, 527. 

Verulam, destruction of, 40. 

Vespasian, 41. 

Vikingr, their origin and piracies, 149, 
176. 

Villain, 240, 273, 485, 572, 589. 

Ville-Hardouin, Joffroi de, 613. 

Villon, Francois, 624, 625. 

Visigoths, 467, 468, 493. 

Vitality of local names, 119. 

vliet, Dutch suffix in local names, mean- 
ing "a flow of water." See feet. 

Wace, Robert, 148, 177, 201, 205, 209, 
220, 225-227, 275, 393, 482. 

Wales, Celtic local names in, 120-125 I 
surnames, 314, 315. 

Wall, Hadrian's, 44, 45, 131. 

Wallachia,' 20. 

Wallis, 20. 

Walloon, 20. 

Walsh, 20. 

Wansbeckwater, curious agglomeration 
of the name, 122. 

Wantonness of Roman tyranny, in 
Britain, 37-41, 49 ; in Gaul, 473. 

ware, were, Anglo-Saxon roots, mean- 
ing "inhabitants," 64, 96. 

War-vessels, British, 12 ; Saxon, 68. 

Water-pimpernel (samolus), supersti- 
tion as to the medicinal virtues of, 

533- 
Watling Street (Wsethlinga-street), 129, 

155, 181. 
Waylandsmith, legend of, 183. 



Weald of Kent, 188. 

Weapons, prehistoric, 17-19 ; British, 
8, 9 ; Frankish, 77, 196 ; Saxon, 79, 
196 ; Lombard, 196 ; Norman, 227. 

Welsh, the name of, 20, 208, 484, 485 ; 
dialect, 22 ; triads, 2, 25, 31 ; bards, 
2, 25, 26, 31, 53, 59 ; missionaries, 
117 ; surnames, 3T4, 315. 

Wends, 83. 

Westminster, 230. 

Whisky, 118. 

wick, Anglo-Saxon root in English 
local names, meaning "a district," 

175. 

wick, Norse root in English local 
names, meaning " a bay, a creek," 
176, 180. 

Wight, Isle of, 5, 47, 121. 

Will of a gentleman at the end of the 
fourteenth century, 291. 

William, Duke of Normandy, 216 ; 
proclaimed King of England, 230 ; 
English opinion as regards the jus- 
tice of his claim, 245. See Edward 
the Confessor; Harold; Norman Con- 
quest of England. 

Wilson, " Art of Rhetorique," 364. 

Winchester, 35, 250, 382. 

Winifreth. See Boniface. 

Woad, 13. 

Woden, 145. 

worth, worthig, Anglo-Saxon suffixes, 
meaning "a homestead," 187. 

wy. See gwy. 

Wyclif, John, 185, 338, 358, 420, 421. 

Wymbleton, Thomas, 427. 

Wynton, 361. 

wysg, Welsh root in river-names, mean- 
ing "a current," 121. 

yard, Anglo-Saxon root, meaning "a 
place fenced in, or guarded," 186. 
See garth. 

ye and yat, old English spelling for 
"the" and "that," 136; y e , y 1 , yis, 
for " the," " that," " this," 379. 

York (Eburacum), 44. 

Yorkshire, Friesian settlements in, 96. 



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